Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
[...] Optic communications encompass all technologies that use light and transmit through fiber optic cables, such as the internet, email, text messages, phone calls, the cloud and data centers, among others. Optic communications are super fast but in microchips they become unreliable and difficult to replicate in large quanitites.
Now, by using a Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (MONOS) structure, Levy and his team have come up with a new integrated circuit that uses flash memory technology -- the kind used in flash drives and discs-on-key -- in microchips. If successful, this technology will enable standard 8-16 gigahertz computers to run 100 times faster and will bring all optic devices closer to the holy grail of communications: the terahertz chip.
Source: Smaller and faster: The terahertz computer chip is now within reach
Non-Volatile Silicon Photonics Using Nanoscale Flash Memory Technology (DOI: 10.1002/lpor.201700190) (DX)
Related Stories
Scientists build ultra-high-speed terahertz wireless chip:
To enable data transmission speeds that surpass the 5th Generation (5G) standards for telecommunications, scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Osaka University in Japan have built a new chip using a concept called photonic topological insulators.
Published recently in Nature Photonics, the researchers showed that their chip can transmit terahertz (THz) waves resulting in a data rate of 11 Gigabits per second (Gbit/s), which is capable of supporting real-time streaming of 4K high-definition video, and exceeds the hitherto theoretical limit of 10 Gbit/s for 5G wireless communications.
[...] fundamental challenges need to be tackled before THz waves could be used reliably in telecommunications. Two of the biggest issues are the material defects and transmission error rates found in conventional waveguides such as crystals or hollow cables.
These issues were overcome using Photonic Topological Insulators (PTI), which allows light waves to be conducted on the surface and edges of the insulators, akin to a train following railroads, rather than through the material.
[...] Their discovery could pave the way for more PTI THz interconnects—structures that connect various components in a circuit—to be integrated into wireless communication devices, to give the next generation '6G' communications an unprecedented terabytes-per-second speed (10 to 100 times faster than 5G) in future.
[...] "By employing THz technology, it can potentially boost intra-chip and inter-chip communication to support Artificial intelligence and cloud-based technologies, such as interconnected self-driving cars, which will need to transmit data quickly to other nearby cars and infrastructure to navigate better and also to avoid accidents."
[...] Areas of potential application for THz interconnect technology will include data centers, IOT devices, massive multicore CPUs (computing chips) and long-range communications, including telecommunications and wireless communication such as Wi-Fi.
Journal Reference:
Yihao Yang, Yuichiro Yamagami, Xiongbin Yu, et al. Terahertz topological photonics for on-chip communication, Nature Photonics (DOI: 10.1038/s41566-020-0618-9)
Previously:
(2020-07-15) Samsung's 6G White Paper: Available by 2030, 1,000 Gbps Peak Speed, 1 Gbps "User Experienced" Speed
(2020-06-02) Atom-Thin Switches Could Route 5G, and Even 6G Radio Signals
(2020-01-21) Record-Breaking Terahertz Laser Beam
(2019-03-17) FCC Will Allow Wireless Devices to Operate in the 95 GHz to 3 THz Range
(2018-03-30) Smaller and Faster: The Terahertz Computer Chip is Now Within Reach
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 31 2018, @12:10PM (6 children)
I'm guessing that means it won't be ready for another thirty years or so then. That's 3-4x what current "standard" speeds are and we're not even remotely in danger of seeing a 2x clock speed increase within the next decade if the past decade is anything to go by.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @12:31PM (5 children)
>> That's 3-4x what current "standard" speeds are
I heard IPC was more important anyway.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:54PM (4 children)
Depends on the application, of course. A single threaded or poorly designed multi-threaded application won't see much if any benefit from improved IPC. There are a whole lot more of those combined categories than there are of well-designed multi-threaded applications.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:39PM (3 children)
By IPC do you mean instructions per clock, or inter-process communication. In this context it usually means instructions per clock, and that will benefit all but IO (including memory latency) bound applications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_cycle [wikipedia.org]
(The exact same confusion had me wondering what was going on for years...)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:52PM
The latter. I hadn't enough caffeine in me yet apparently.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:46AM (1 child)
> In this context it usually means instructions per clock, and that will benefit all but IO (including memory latency) bound applications.
Up to a point, as branch prediction misses will murder performance, so your program will appear to randomly slow down to a fraction of "regular" execution speed. A user-facing program that randomly slows down to, say, 1%, is way worse than a program that's that slow all the time. Of course, you could improve the situation by speculatively executing both branches, but you have to be careful of the ever-looming spectre of a meltdown...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:57AM
And branch prediction led to all those fun security vulnerabilities.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:16PM (4 children)
So I ask myself: what is the most memorable aspect of flash memory, after the fact that it is... memory?
Why, the fact that it wears out with use.
This, they want to make processors from.
Isn't that... interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:22PM (1 child)
That is bases for for all marketing....
1) Get them hooked
2) Resale, Resale, Resale
Give away the razor, and sell the blades!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:46PM
Or a parallel from electronic technology: Give away the DRM-encumbered printer, sell the DRM-encumbered cartridges!
(Score: 2) by seeprime on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:01PM
I don't think this is likely to happen. It looks like another reach for grant money. Maybe they'll learn something useful anyway, in spite of choosing mortal flash memory.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:10PM
hardware planned obsolescence. Yay! A fast world with new shiny stuff that breaks down conveniently after time and just in time for the next product launch.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:02PM
MDC will use his terahertz mining rig to mine more cryptocurrency than you. Better get ready to kiss the bald dick head of MDC. MDC is going to be the winner of the money race. Richest dickhead alive will be MDC.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by leftover on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:08PM
Academic and commercial researchers have been making integrated optical low-level components for decades now. Each one has been reported as though it was "the breakthrough" for the field. Yawn.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:58PM (8 children)
how far (in S.I. units pls) does a "electricity" particle go anyways in the time of a inverse terahertz second?
how big is the gap between the two dopant material anyways: "cross the gap or it didn't happen"?
-
this post is considered delete anyways ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:56PM
According to my back of the envelope calculations, it travels "just enough" S.I. units in an inverse terahertz second to cross the gap and never look back.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Sunday April 01 2018, @03:20AM (4 children)
Just shy of 1/8"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 01 2018, @11:45PM (3 children)
Have you accounted for the refractive index?
For silicon, it varies with wavelength [refractiveindex.info] (near UV is a whooping 6.7, absorbs quite strong under 200nm), in vis is around to 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Sunday April 01 2018, @11:58PM (2 children)
That's why I said it was ”just shy” of:)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 02 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
Thanks, 'twas a lazy question
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday April 02 2018, @10:04PM
With a very imprecise answer:)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:48PM
Less than one school bus. Which is approximately equal to less than one linear library of congress, or less than one linear elephant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @09:19PM
Light could travel 0.3 mm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @11:36PM (1 child)
We were using these way back when RISC was a thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:50PM
RISC is still alive and kicing, if you count ARM (which stands for "Advanced RISC Machines" or something like that).