Hiroshima University, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, and Panasonic Corporation announced the successful development of a terahertz (THz) transceiver that can transmit or receive digital data at 80 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). The transceiver was implemented using silicon CMOS integrated circuit technology, which would have a great advantage for volume production. Details of the technology will be presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2019 to be held from February 17 to February 21 in San Francisco, California [1].
The THz band is a new and vast frequency resource expected to be used for future ultrahigh-speed wireless communications. IEEE Standard 802.15.3d, published in October 2017, defines the use of the lower THz frequency range between 252 gigahertz (GHz) and 325 GHz (the "300-GHz band") as high-speed wireless communication channels. The research group has developed a single-chip transceiver that achieves a communication speed of 80 Gbit/s using the channel 66 defined by the Standard. The research group developed a 300-GHz-band transmitter chip capable of 105 Gbit/s [2] and a receiver chip capable of 32 Gbit/s [3] in the past few years. The group has now integrated a transmitter and a receiver into a single transceiver chip.
"We presented a CMOS transmitter that could do 105 Gbit/s in 2017, but the performance of receivers we developed, or anybody else did for that matter, were way behind [3] for a reason. We can use a technique called 'power combining' in transmitters for performance boosting, but the same technique cannot be applied to receivers. An ultrafast transmitter is useless unless an equally fast receiver is available. We have finally managed to bring the CMOS receiver performance close to 100 Gbit/s," said Prof. Minoru Fujishima, Graduate School of Advanced Sciences of Matter, Hiroshima University.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday February 22 2019, @07:50PM
Gotta love STEM...taking us to the unknown future...
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Friday February 22 2019, @07:57PM (10 children)
Can it transmit through a sheet of plain paper?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday February 22 2019, @08:18PM (8 children)
It may not have the in-building penetration of the old analog TV frequencies, or the mobile pagers (remember those?), but maybe it can be used as a replacement for I2C between chips.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @09:46PM (1 child)
also known as killing a fly with a sledgehammer
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday February 22 2019, @10:15PM
Why use a 555 timer when you could use an 8 pin dip [sparkfun.com] to shrinkkify [youtube.com] your arduino with the blink sketch. It doesn't have many GPIO pins, but neither does a 555 have many output pins.
Of course a better sledgehammer would be a Raspberry Pi to replace a 555 timer. That would allow having a web based interface, in the spirit of IoT, to enable remote access to adjust the timing.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:51PM (5 children)
Ah, this is true. Wireless interconnect amongst the chips would be ideal. You wouldn't even need a motherboard anymore, or a more basic system would have the hard drives connected by wireless. Just put them up near the case.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:11PM (4 children)
Yeah, let's just broadcast all the data, gotta do your duty and make it easier for the NSA and the black hat sitting in the parking lot.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:29PM
That's a good argument for a grounded chassis, but it's not an argument for an internal bus. And you'd need lots of power supplies if you didn't plug the chips into a motherboard. But imagine using it as an approach to constructing true 3D (or even n-dimensional) systems. Some of the signal would probably leak, but it's information content would probably be degraded until it was worse than trying to read minds by looking at EEGs. And radio connections allows you to get away from the heat sink problem that 3-D systems have always had.
All that said, the radio links are inherently going to be slower than direct wired connections unless the wires are pretty long. Because they've got a few extra conversion steps. So if wired connections are feasible, they'll be preferred.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:30PM (2 children)
The metal case makes a pretty good Faraday cage. On the other hand you could just throw the chips into a cardboard box, give them some power, and it's off to the races. And if the signal makes it out to the parking lot, then all my other concerns about the range are alleviated
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:09PM (1 child)
The case /might/ make a good cage for a signal with a frequency this high, but it sure as hell isn't stopping WiFi. Given that the transmitters will in all likelyhood be black boxes, there's really no way of knowing exactly what is being transmitted and to whom without some very expensive equipment.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:32PM
Given that the transmitters will in all likelyhood be black boxes, there's really no way of knowing exactly what is being transmitted and to whom without some very expensive equipment.
Then we should assume everything is being transmitted and recorded and stop worrying about it. We have the same tools at our disposal. They're easy to catch. Just nail 'em hard when you do.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:02AM
It probably won't be useful as a WiFi replacement, but maybe useful for LOS links at locations where running fiber is difficult or too costly?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday February 22 2019, @08:17PM (3 children)
But a very forced reference to the "Singularity". You can enjoy the Kool-Aid once in a while, just don't get diabeetus.
The Singularity is more often related to the raw computational power or a new type of architecture, such as neuromorphic. On-chip communication speed is a constraint in part because we have planar chips and DRAM is too far away. A 3D chip could alleviate many constraints.
You could have a superintelligent AI stuck in a "box" and unable to communicate with the outside world. It doesn't require high-bandwidth communication beyond what's necessary for its processor(s) and internals to operate.
This research could be good for something like an untethered VR headset or replacing cables in a room. It could become part of the 6G standard [soylentnews.org] that Trump is holding his breath for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.15#IEEE_802.15.3:_High_Rate_WPAN [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by east coast on Friday February 22 2019, @10:52PM (1 child)
What about distributive computing? This seems to be an area that has (had?) so much potential that now seems to be just sputtering along.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 5423 BC.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday February 22 2019, @11:04PM
Oh, you want to distribute some computing?
http://optics.org/news/8/10/23 [optics.org]
Yeah.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:33PM
This may not be a "3D chip", but it could be an enabler for 3D systems. Or even 4D, though that requires tinkering with frequencies more. Part of the question is "How directional can it be made? Under what constraints?", but this is a way around the heat problem that 3D circuits have always had.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:55AM (1 child)
This must be the 6G technology that Trump is talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:32PM
I'll sit this out until I can get 7G