Holy Holey Optochip! IBM hits a terabit of info per second

Big Blue's new prototype chip surpasses major milestone, thanks to unlikely innovation: tiny holes in a quarter-inch chip, boosting data transfer.

 

A look at the IBM Holey Optochip, a new chip architecture capable of transferring a terabit of information per second.

(Credit: IBM) IBM said this evening that its scientists have developed a computer chip that can move a trillion bits of information a second.
Known as the "Holey Optochip," the prototype optical chipset can transfer the equivalent of 500 high-definition movies a second, or the entire U.S. Library of Congress Web archive in an hour, Big Blue said. The innovation is possible because IBM's scientists figured out that, by drilling 48 minuscule holes in a standard quarter-inch silicon CMOS chip, they were able to ramp up data transfer rates from what was possible.

And by breaking through the terabyte-per-second barrier, the Holey Optochip is capable of data transfer at up to eight times the speed of today's parallel optical components, IBM said. The company plans to show off its research on the new chip at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in Los Angeles tomorrow.
IBM said the Holey Optochip module "is constructed with components that are commercially available today, providing the possibility to manufacture at economies of scale."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57392524-52/holy-holey-optochip-ibm-hits-a-terabit-of-info-per-second/#ixzz1oZ7CvT5r