Light Emitting Silicon, holy grail???

[The_Mowman]

This just was announced today and was brought to my attention during an Electrical engineering class this morning. A company has come out with way of making light emitting silicon that will significantly speed up processor speeds by allowing the clock signal to reach all parts of the chip at the same time, which will almost eliminate gate delay. Theres an article on Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/10/28/1256254.shtml?tid=137

One on New York Times: (You need to register to see it)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/technology/28CHIP.html

And here is the company's website's press release:
http://us.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2002/t1098d.htm

If this goes mainstream, some are calling it the holy grail of the semiconductor industry. just thought you guys would be interested. I am going to multi post this also in the Intel section.

 

[DaveSauce]

nah, the holy grail of the semiconductor industry would be the superconductor...heh. But I guess light emitting silicon would be close enough, being the speed of light and all....heh.

 

[Skiing Squirrel]

what do you think the clock speeds will be if they use this?

 

[deathstar13]

6.5 ghz for intel
1.7 ghz amd
lmao sorry it just came out! this would be cool and how long will it take for this tecnology to be tested> or is it already?

 

[Carnil]

I don't expect to see any chips based on it for at least another five years.

 

[ziah]

if even intended for consumer use.

~z

 

[Stedeman]

nah, the holy grail of the semiconductor industry would be the superconductor...heh. But I guess light emitting silicon would be close enough, being the speed of light and all....heh.

sorry but, carbon nan-tubes

 

[PCphreak]

Quantum Mechanics. Mark my words friends, one day IC's will shy entirely away from electrons and move to photons. This is now possible because in March '02, a group of scientist were able to entirely stop and re-release light in an unchanged form. As what mow_man said about gate delay, light travels so much faster than electricity. In one nano second (A 1 GHz processor cycles at 1ns), light will travel 11.89 inches! Thanks for the post Mow_man!

-PC

 

[TyRex]

Are you sure they stopped it??? I thought they only slowed it to about 30 m/s

 

[o0OBruceLeeO0o]

6.5 ghz for intel
1.7 ghz amd
lmao sorry it just came out! this would be cool and how long will it take for this tecnology to be tested> or is it already?

LOL!

I have no idea what that stuff means but if it means faster CPU ill take it

 

[PCphreak]

Are you sure they stopped it??? I thought they only slowed it to about 30 m/s

99.9% positive....let me dig up the article...be right back...
<edit>
Here you go Bud- http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/27mar_stoplight.htm. I thought it was interesting, as I'm sure you will too!

I have one question: How can an object with zero mass (Photon) be interacted with an outside force causing it to go into motion? You know, since mass is all part of the equation in finding acceleration??
</edit>


-PC

 

[Stedeman]

99.9% positive....let me dig up the article...be right back...
<edit>
Here you go Bud- http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/27mar_stoplight.htm. I thought it was interesting, as I'm sure you will too!

I have one question: How can an object with zero mass (Photon) be interacted with an outside force causing it to go into motion? You know, since mass is all part of the equation in finding acceleration??
</edit>


-PC

thank you its a good read

 

[PCphreak]

thank you its a good read

Not a problem...

-PC

 

[Mr. $T$]

Plus Light has no Mass so a 'gate' can be as small as you can dream Unlike an electron that has mass. Which the gate can be only so small, before no electrons can fit through it.

 

[Lt. Max]

well mrt T the light emitting device tho can only b so small i think.. and how straight it emits it too.. or something.. if i understand it correctly