IBM: Chip Breakthrough Could Lead to Exascale Computing

Posted 12/01/2010 at 8:38am | by Paul Lilly

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The guys and gals wearing lab coats over at IBM are jazzed about a new chip technology that integrates electrical and optical devices on the same piece of silicon, paving the way for chips to communicate by sending pulses of light rather than electrical signals. This will ultimately lead to a technological hat trick involving smaller, faster, and more power efficient chips, IBM says.

It's called CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics, and according to IBM, the new technology represents over a decade of development and could enable over 10X improvement in integration density over what's currently possible with today's manufacturing tricks.

"The development of the Silicon Nanophotonics technology brings the vision of on-chip optical interconnections much closer to reality," said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president, Science and Technology, IBM Research. "With optical communications embedded into the processor chips, the prospect of building power-efficient computer systems with performance at the Exaflop level is one step closer to reality."

One of the best aspects of this new technology is that it doesn't require a hefty investment into new assembly lines. IBM says it requires no new or special tooling, and is able to be produced on the front-end of a standard CMOS manufacturing line.

Much more on the topic here.

Image Credit: IBM