Intel's 50Gbps Laser Light Beams Are the Future
Sharks with 50Gbps laser beams?
Someday in the future, we may look back on the technology we're using today and laugh that we were using electrons to carry data in and around computers.
Intel Corporation this week announced a research prototype representing the world's first silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today's copper technology; up to 50 gigabits of data per second. This is the equivalent of an entire HD movie being transmitted each second.
The transmitter chip is composed of four such lasers, whose light beams each travel into an optical modulator that encodes data onto them at 12.5Gbps. The four beams are then combined and output to a single optical fiber for a total data rate of 50Gbps. At the other end of the link, the receiver chip separates the four optical beams and directs them into photo detectors, which convert data back into electrical signals.
While telecommunications and other applications already use lasers to transmit information, current technologies are too expensive and bulky to be used for PC applications.
Today computer components are connected to each other using copper cables or traces on circuit boards. Due to the signal degradation that comes with using metals such as copper to transmit data, these cables have a limited maximum length. This limits the design of computers, forcing processors, memory and other components to be placed just inches from each other.
The technology, called silicon photonics, will have far reaching applications. For example, at these data rates one transmit far higher-definition video in a teleconference than what our 1080p sets can display. Silicon photonics will also enable datacenters to be more flexible in location and setup.
"This achievement of the world's first 50Gbps silicon photonics link with integrated hybrid silicon lasers marks a significant achievement in our long term vision of ‘siliconizing' photonics and bringing high bandwidth, low cost optical communications in and around future PCs, servers, and consumer devices" Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer and director of Intel Labs, said.
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I want freakin' laser beams on my shark, not my PC. How hard is this Intel?
Intel..
pls release them this year..
need em ASAP..
Here, let me share some of my movies with you. Pew Pew Pew!
Embedded fiber-optics in my motherboard.....So, my 2020 motherboard will display a LASER light show without my having those blue CCFL tubes? But seriously, when I looked at all the wires connecting all my peripherals, I was thinking that wire management will surely be easier - smaller, thinner bundles.
GET RID OF DIAL-UP SPEEDS PLEASE.
thank you.
After thought.
What about power transfer to devices that may require it?
"Someday in the future, we may look back on the technology we're using today and laugh that we were using electrons to carry data in and around computers."
And then we'll laugh again when we switch back to using electrons. Except this time, we'll be using individual electrons to carry binary data. Up spin can equal 0 and down spin can equal 1.
I might be off but 50Gbits per second is 5GB per second an HD movie is (for a single layer BD-Rom 25GB so it would be every 5 seconds or 10 seconds for a 50GB BD.
This is yet another reason why I've been holding back on a new build.
A gigabit is 1/8 of a gigaByte
Something from intel that I actually like --- what$ the catch ? I hope it don't co$t an arm and a leg.
this is not new sounds to me just like fiber optics supporting the internet tiers which hum 10gbs
whats so new if they hiked 50 out of 4 fibers?
This is yet another reason why I've been holding back on a new build.
how long have u been holding out exactly...
after reading your comment... i feel like you have been holding back for decades...
kirk: "we're pinned down!"
scotty: "no problem captain, lemme see your phaser. i'll plug it into this hyperdoc and... now we can watch battlestar galactica at resolutions much greater than 1080p..."
kirk: "..."
I'm holding off on a new build until they make it shoot lasers directly into my brain. Monitor free.
I want fibre optics.
Through all I'm concerned, all homes should have 10Gb/s. They better be putting at least some of the $60/month it is for my cable internet to use...
quiky87 and Computerrock1 were on the right trail. At 50 Gigabits/second, a dual-layer Bluray movie would take 8 seconds to transfer. Marcus, did you mean 50 Gigabytes/second?
Wow, in the third vid it says that the link is scalable up to 1 Terabit. I wonder if this is why Intel has been holding off on supporting USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps. I really hope that this will be coming out sooner than later.
meh
when they can do wireless(fiberless?) laser data transmissions, then I'll be impressed. Just don't get any paper(or a finger) between your PC and your wireless monitor!
Who needs electrons when you have photons
File transfer will still be limited by the source device. HDD/Blu ray drive will still be a bottleneck when copying files. Hoping they get SSDs fast enough to take advantage of that speed.
I love alien technology!
Computerrock1 is right in saying that “A gigabit is 1/8 of a gigabyte” but when converting between gigabit and gigabyte transfer rate you should divide by ten because of the stop and start bits. Even if the transfer protocol does not use stop and start bits it will have other overheads that will be roughly the same.
The last video reminds me of those UAC videos from Doom 3. lol
A whopping 6.25GB/s according to a calculator I used.
http://www.matisse.net/bitcalc/
Need to transfer a DVD in just a hair over a second? Done.
Problem is... hard drives don't even come close to this speed in terms of write performance. This technology is the most future proof I've seen.
What happens if I shine it in my eyes?
quiky87 and Computerrock1 were on the right trail. At 50 Gigabits/second, a dual-layer Bluray movie would take 8 seconds to transfer. Marcus, did you mean 50 Gigabytes/second?
Intel was probably referring to one of the for-download HD (read: 720p) movies that you can get on Xbox Live or PSN. Even dual layer Blu-rays aren't packed to the brim with a 50GB video file. They're often also packed with featurettes and commentaries. The movies themselves are around half the disc. But yes, I do agree that Intel's boasting is a bit... well, optimistic.
I just hope we get this ASAP. Imagine one standard cable across almost all possible devices that does not need replacing/upgrading and of course the almost limitless bandwidth that does not attenuate/degrade so easily.
quiky87 and Computerrock1 were on the right trail. At 50 Gigabits/second, a dual-layer Bluray movie would take 8 seconds to transfer. Marcus, did you mean 50 Gigabytes/second?
no transfer speeds are done in bits while size is done in bytes idk y thats just the way it is
Then it was cooper layer then cooling, then lasers then we will have cpu running at 8Ghz on a desktop pc.
Who needs electrons when you have photons
these photons are produced by the transition of electrons from a higher energy state to a lower energy state