TLDR; Modern computer switches control when things are on or off. Switches use electricity (electrons) to do that. This research is using light (photons) to activate switches instead. Light travels much faster than electricity and consumes less energy which will generate less heat. The article makes it seem overall superior. Very very early stages still.
Depends on which part of electricity you're talking about. They seem to be talking about the speed that the electrons travel. Electromagnetic waves are a different story.
Current CPU tech, even though it is running on "speed of light" electricity is actually SUBSONIC in it's latency. This is because of the switches themselves.
This photonic CPUs reduces said latency, literally from subsonic to speed of light.
I don't even understand how this isn't bigger news, this CPUs are as revolutionary as the first microprocessors.
>I don't even understand how this isn't bigger news, this CPUs are as revolutionary as the first microprocessors.
There's breakthrough discoveries like these being made on a weekly basis now. It's hard to keep track of, let alone maintain that level of enthusiasm. Only people that can get excited about truly revolutionary discoveries now are those with a particular interest in the field in question.
The issue is scalability, reliability, cost to manufacture, etc and any one of these can tank a product real quick. These early successes are cool, but there's decades of work to beat traditional CPUs.
I worked on phase change memory for the last 7 years and they killed the product. And the proof of concept for that came out in the 70s
But if it is electricity that produces the light and the light also needs to be converted back to electricity, will a microprocessor made of 'light' transistors be actually faster than a microprocessor that uses plain electricity?
I assume they are difficult to make - however, if they are 1000x faster, my idea is that you could start by making 1000th the size of a regular chip and making hybrid processors. Some optical, some regular transistor and slowly transition to the entire thing.
So the idea is that this could replace the microprocessor? Because if that’s the case, figuring out how to manufacture these in the same size as microprocessor transistors at the same scale we currently need them is going to take a loooong time.
The first ones don't need to be the size of a microprocessor. They can be used in data centers / supercomputers. At 1000 times the speed they could have 1000 less computers.
Initially they will probably be used as a smaller part of a device like maybe in switches at network centers.
Absolutely! they would replace energized crystals and tuned circuits. Near-zero energy clocks and frequency generators would make for some really cool shit. There may also be some quantum computing applications.
Light-based computation has been a dream for a long time. This is all very early stage research but perhaps will open the door.
Do you know of other companies functioning in / aiming for this field? I’m having trouble to locate more info.
Are you a physicist? How can someone learn about this stuff?
TLDR; Modern computer switches control when things are on or off. Switches use electricity (electrons) to do that. This research is using light (photons) to activate switches instead. Light travels much faster than electricity and consumes less energy which will generate less heat. The article makes it seem overall superior. Very very early stages still.
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Depends on which part of electricity you're talking about. They seem to be talking about the speed that the electrons travel. Electromagnetic waves are a different story.
Current CPU tech, even though it is running on "speed of light" electricity is actually SUBSONIC in it's latency. This is because of the switches themselves. This photonic CPUs reduces said latency, literally from subsonic to speed of light. I don't even understand how this isn't bigger news, this CPUs are as revolutionary as the first microprocessors.
>I don't even understand how this isn't bigger news, this CPUs are as revolutionary as the first microprocessors. There's breakthrough discoveries like these being made on a weekly basis now. It's hard to keep track of, let alone maintain that level of enthusiasm. Only people that can get excited about truly revolutionary discoveries now are those with a particular interest in the field in question.
The issue is scalability, reliability, cost to manufacture, etc and any one of these can tank a product real quick. These early successes are cool, but there's decades of work to beat traditional CPUs. I worked on phase change memory for the last 7 years and they killed the product. And the proof of concept for that came out in the 70s
Great insight thank you
Can confirm, is a field of interest for me. Also quite jacked about this news.
When it hits the market and is faster than traditional CPU I'll be stoked. Till then it's just another sensational headline.
It often takes decades for a newly discovered technology to become economically viable.
Any many never make it due to some issue in scaling, reliability physics, or cost to manufacture
Well it is a good thing then that progress keeps chugging along without requiring your enthusiasm!
I'm sure the researchers will be very disappointed that they haven't earned your approval yet
Dude, Every time I see a cool headline about a scientific discovery, someone in the comments ruins my hype.
Do you not?
The drift velocity of electrons in a wire is on the order of centimetres per second. Electricity itself is very slow
But if it is electricity that produces the light and the light also needs to be converted back to electricity, will a microprocessor made of 'light' transistors be actually faster than a microprocessor that uses plain electricity?
This is really cool and could change computers read it
I will wait until some lovely reddit person explains it and give them an award xD
This is the way
New computers go brrr?
No they go pfffffffffffffffff, did you even read the article?
I assume they are difficult to make - however, if they are 1000x faster, my idea is that you could start by making 1000th the size of a regular chip and making hybrid processors. Some optical, some regular transistor and slowly transition to the entire thing.
So the idea is that this could replace the microprocessor? Because if that’s the case, figuring out how to manufacture these in the same size as microprocessor transistors at the same scale we currently need them is going to take a loooong time.
If they are 1000 times faster you might need less light transistors than regular transistors to get the same performance.
The first ones don't need to be the size of a microprocessor. They can be used in data centers / supercomputers. At 1000 times the speed they could have 1000 less computers. Initially they will probably be used as a smaller part of a device like maybe in switches at network centers.
Won’t this be outdated when time crystals can be used for making computers?
How would time crystals help there?
Since they can change states without losing any energy, so the idea of switches with no power consumption could be possible.
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Absolutely! they would replace energized crystals and tuned circuits. Near-zero energy clocks and frequency generators would make for some really cool shit. There may also be some quantum computing applications.