New display hits 1 million FPS — display and high-speed camera could enable 1 Terabit per second communication speeds, beating current network interfaces

X Display Company (XDC) has introduced an advanced high-speed screen that can display one million frames per second. But while they use the term 'FPS' to describe the device, this unit is by no means designed for gaming, or rather, human beings. Instead, when paired with an ultra-fast camera, the display system is designed to enable low-power, high-bandwidth machine-to-machine communication at blindingly fast speeds.

The 'display system' (or rather a TX-RX system?) is comprised of an ultrafast microLED display that acts like a transmitter and a high-frame-rate camera that acts like a receiver. The display utilizes thousands of emitters operating across multiple wavelengths, flashing structured patterns of light at a rate of up to one million frames per second. Each frame contains a chunk of digitally encoded information, though XDC does not disclose how large that chunk is. A high-speed camera, positioned to face the display, captures these frames and decodes the data, enabling real-time, cable-free communication between the transmitter and receiver. 

XDC suggests that continued development of the technology could lead to throughput at 1 Tb/s levels, which exceeds the performance of today's fastest network interfaces, but is still slower than the upcoming 1600G (1.6 Tbps) technology. 

XDC says that the system dynamically adapts to bandwidth needs and achieves two- or three-times better energy efficiency than 800G optical transceivers. This is particularly valuable in data centers, where energy use for networking and cooling represents a significant share of operational costs. However, it is unclear how much power is required to decode and encode data transmitted in this manner.

Furthermore, XDC's interconnect architecture does not need physical fiber or copper connections, which could provide much-needed flexibility and ease of maintenance for massive data centers. In addition, XDC states that its system's performance can be dynamically adjusted in real-time in terms of data transmission paths and bandwidth allocations based on current needs, which could further simplify data center operations. However, a widespread change of medium from fiber or copper to air or vacuum might require a major redesign of servers and data centers, which is a hard endeavor for the industry. 

"The capacity to dynamically transmit data at megahertz speeds through the air, holds transformative promise for cloud infrastructure," said Nikhil Jain, Director of OptoElectronics & Strategic Partnerships at X Display. "We are proud to present the world's fastest display and display-based optical links, enabling the transmission of vast data volumes through free space rather than cumbersome fiber bundles. Looking ahead, with continued innovation, terabit-per-second and beyond bandwidths are within reach — facilitating scalable, modular, and energy-efficient optical communication, and paving the way for pioneering applications such as optical computing." 

Without any doubt, XDC's technology looks promising on paper. However, it remains to be seen whether it will find use beyond niche applications or use cases in actual data centers.

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