Experimental CPU with integrated optical logic promises significant power reductions

[DuckDodgers]

 
Researches at MIT had successfully demonstrated a working prototype of CPU with directly integrated photonic and conventional electronic components on a single die, working together. The photonic part is used for the I/O interface with the memory, while the CPU itself is made using a standard manufacturing process.
 

A microprocessor that uses optical connections instead of electrical wires to shuttle data around has long been the dream of chip designers, but the attempt to fabricate one has frustrated them for years.

Now a prototype described in the journal Nature offers a promising and practical approach. The electronic-optical microprocessor, developed by a group of researchers at MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, integrates over 70 million transistors and 850 optical components. The system uses optical fibers, transmitters, and receivers to send data between a processor chip and a memory chip. In a demo, it runs a graphics program to display and manipulate a 3-D image, a task that requires using the internal optical connections to fetch data from memory and run instructions.

Optical connections can carry more data faster than electrical ones consuming the same amount of power. The data transfers in the prototype occurred at a rate of 300 gigabits per second per square millimeter, which the researchers say is 10 to 50 times the rate for a comparable off-the-shelf electronic microprocessor. That boost in bandwidth could save a lot of energy in data centers, says Chen Sun, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He estimates that 20 to 30 percent of the energy used in data-center servers is spent transferring data between processor, memory, and networking cards. According to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, data centers in the United States will consume 140 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year by 2020, costing $13 billion and emitting 100 million metric tons of carbon.

While optical connections are widely used for long-distance telecommunication connections, bringing them into servers and onto chips has been difficult. Optical components have been expensive to make, requiring dedicated processes and materials that are tricky or impossible to integrate into existing semiconductor production lines.

 

 

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/544961/light-chips-could-mean-more-energy-efficient-data-centers/

Peer review article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v528/n7583/full/nature16454.html

[AlTech]

Holy cows.

[MrDynamicMan]

How many decades will it take for the infrastructure to be laid out?

Seriously though. This is awesome.

[Toddwjp]

i wonder if using LIGHT would allow for larger CPU's made out of cheaper materials and still be cheaper then silicon, since a data centre wont care if there cpu is the size of a phone if its costs the same or less and uses way less power and thus less heat

[Prysin]

gonna take some time before they figure a fail safe way to make this consumer friendly...

 

having to rely on fiber optic wires to connect with the socket means that the CPU will have pins that are even MORE fragile then anything in existence today

[AresKrieger]

i wonder if using LIGHT would allow for larger CPU's made out of cheaper materials and still be cheaper then silicon, since a data centre wont care if there cpu is the size of a phone if its costs the same or less and uses way less power and thus less heat

The materials wouldn't change much in cost (if anything it would increase silicon is dirt cheap), the main cost difference would be what equipment would be required to make these chips at a fab, if the equipment used in other chip manufacturing would do (with some tweaks) it would be similar to current chips, however the lower heat combined with the increased speed from using light may make them cheaper in the sense of price/performance.

[Toddwjp]

The materials wouldn't change much in cost (if anything it would increase silicon is dirt cheap), the main cost difference would be what equipment would be required to make these chips at a fab, if the equipment used in other chip manufacturing would do (with some tweaks) it would be similar to current chips, however the lower heat combined with the increased speed from using light may make them cheaper in the sense of price/performance.

 

larger chip = less precision required = Cheaper manafacturing tools

[Doobeedoo]

Nice. Looking forward in progress of optical components, it just sounds awesome having a computer based on so called light technology. Having components working together via optics, would like to see computer like that for sure

[CTR640]

Can it run PacMan? Will this beat Intel?

[Misanthrope]

gonna take some time before they figure a fail safe way to make this consumer friendly...

having to rely on fiber optic wires to connect with the socket means that the CPU will have pins that are even MORE fragile then anything in existence today

You could skip the socket and solder in (not solder since it's fibre cables but well) the cpu and ram.

[-BirdiE-]

larger chip = less precision required = Cheaper manafacturing tools

 

Also, less heat output = smaller cooling solution. So even though the chip is bigger, chip+heatsink might not be THAT much bigger.

[Fetzie]

You could skip the socket and solder in (not solder since it's fibre cables but well) the cpu and ram.

So like they do with BGA chips?

[ZetZet]

larger chip = less precision required = Cheaper manafacturing tools

larger chip = more heat = slower, don't need no light for that.

[Tech_Dreamer]

This is absolutely awesome!

[Overkilled]

TL;DR

[Toddwjp]

larger chip = more heat = slower, don't need no light for that.

 

 

what part of light requiring way less power and thus less heat did you not get that allows a large chip to be viable again. im talking about making the cpu use light as well

[ZetZet]

what part of light requiring way less power and thus less heat did you not get that allows a large chip to be viable again. im talking about making the cpu use light as well

wut do you mean light requiring way less power, do you have some new way of generating light that I don't know about? Not to mention shrinking down stuff that transmits and receives light is WAY HARDER than just shrinking transistors.

[Toddwjp]

wut do you mean light requiring way less power, do you have some new way of generating light that I don't know about? Not to mention shrinking down stuff that transmits and receives light is WAY HARDER than just shrinking transistors.

 

all evidence points towards a light based system requiring way less power then an electrically based system less power is less heat. yes we cant make it yet but this is about the future.

[ZetZet]

all evidence points towards a light based system requiring way less power then an electrically based system less power is less heat. yes we cant make it yet but this is about the future.

you have to understand some things, our current transistors are so small they almost get damaged by electrons. We can't shrink the stuff that receives light to that level, it would get fried.

[Toddwjp]

you have to understand some things, our current transistors are so small they almost get damaged by electrons. We can't shrink the stuff that receives light to that level, it would get fried.

 

and were not talking about current levels of technology in this article or in this thread, 

[NinjaJc01]

you have to understand some things, our current transistors are so small they almost get damaged by electrons. We can't shrink the stuff that receives light to that level, it would get fried.

And, also, things won't be shrunk that small if you follow @Toddwjp 's train of thought.

[ZetZet]

and were not talking about current levels of technology in this article or in this thread, 

it's not about current technology, it's about current understanding of physics.

[Toddwjp]

it's not about current technology, it's about current understanding of physics.

 

and an optical based cpu is theoretically possible we just dont know how to make all the required pieces yet, the physics of it is already known pretty much

[BuckGup]

POWER!!!! Jermey Clarkson..

[ZetZet]

and an optical based cpu is theoretically possible we just dont know how to make all the required pieces yet, the physics of it is already known pretty much

on a much bigger scale it is definitely possible, the problem is shrinking it down... Like I said...