Terahertz processors?

[ambam]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192201856

With Moore's law hitting a stone wall in the not too distant future, and the laws of physics prevent the transistor from possibly becoming any smaller. What will electronic engineers and computer scientists do to make micro-processors faster, more powerful, and efficient without trying to further decrease the size of the transistor?

Apparently, some scientists have found a method of switching transistors back and forth using pulses of light, instead of electrical current. Such technology could in theory allow micro-processors to run at speeds of a few TeraHertz, or 1,000 Gigahertz, that's more than 1,000 times faster than what we have today, and produce very little heat. Imagine a CPU with 80 or more highly parrallelized cores each running at a speed of 3 THz Could this give home computers PetaFLOP or even ExaFLOP computing power? Could this technology be applied to graphics processing units, as well as other types of micro-processors?

It is utterly impossible to run any of today's micro-processors at speeds of THz.

I can't even imagine how a GPU using this technology would run Crysis. It could probably handle the GPU and CPU segments. 😱 😱 😱

Although I don't think we'll be seeing this technology in home computers for a very long time even if they do start making microchips out of Ballistic Deflection Transistors.

 

[misry]

Elevators with "defocused temporal perception." The concept enables the elevator to see far enough into the future to arrive at a floor before a potential passenger realizes they want it.

 

[ambam]

Elevators with "defocused temporal perception." The concept enables the elevator to see far enough into the future to arrive at a floor before a potential passenger realizes they want it.

????

 

[ambam]

Processors so fast they can see into the future.

Great Scott!

 

[misry]

????

Processors so fast they can see into the future.

 

[ambam]

OR something like this could result from BDT processors. 😀 😀 😀

 

[Collie147]

I wonder if the University of Rochester is up for Grant Renewal soon???

 

[jeyd02]

that's some Big BAG news.

 

[sdf]

Crysis would still bring those processors to their knees

 

[Haserath]

I can see the energy bill rising just to be able to run these processors at Thz speeds 😱 . Light might be more efficient then electrons at transfering energy, but just 1 Thz is 330X faster then most stock processors today. I'm wondering if they would be able to reduce the energy of the signal so that that speed could be reached, at a decent wattage. Besides, most people don't even use the full potential of dual core processors today, what would they do with 80 cores at 3 Thz .

 

[misry]

Light is composed of electrons. Electricity travels at the speed of light minus the resistance in it's path. 640k should be enough for anyone...

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Hmm, I didn't see anything in the linked article about using light to deflect electrons - instead, from the link within that article:

The Ballistic Deflection Transistor (BDT) should produce far less heat and run far faster than standard transistors because it does not start and stop the flow of its electrons the way conventional designs do. It resembles a roadway intersection, except in the middle of the intersection sits a triangular block. From the "south" an electron is fired, as it approaches the crossroads, it passes through an electrical field that pushes the electron slightly east or west. When the electron reaches the middle of the intersection, it bounces off one side of the triangle block and is deflected straight along either the east or west roads. In this way, if the electron current travels along the east road, it may be counted as a zero, and as a one if it travels down the west road.

So apparently it relies upon a small electric field to steer an electron in one direction (logical "one") or another (logical "zero"), as opposed to an ordinary FET that uses an electric field between the gate and substrate to suck up free charges from the substrate into the channel to produce a charge inversion or not (i.e., "on" or "off").

Also from the article:

The heat generation for early versions of the design should be around a few microwatts per transistor, Feldman estimates, orders of magnitude less than current high-frequency transistors. "Now that's without doing any tricks to cut down the power," he says. "There are great opportunities for low-power design. But that's the future."

I'm thinking this has to be a typo, since otherwise an i7-980 or 1090T with a billion transistors would use "a few" kilowatts of juice (10^9 X 10^-6 = 10^3).

Finally, last I heard, light is composed of photons (not electrons) that behave like waves...

 

[misry]

Finally, last I heard, light is composed of photons (not electrons) that behave like waves...

You're right. Caring re: this issue completely depleted.

 

[gamerk316]

"Moores Law' - The law that changed twice after the fact in order to become true over a 35 year timespan.

We'll see what quantum/optical processors go, then we can continue this debate. Odds are, we'll move into massivly mutli-cored systems.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Elevators with "defocused temporal perception." The concept enables the elevator to see far enough into the future to arrive at a floor before a potential passenger realizes they want it.

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy for the damn win )
Moto
but there is an inherent problem with that technology, An elevator that sees into the future may not like the future it sees and end up hiding in the basement neurotically,
which leads to hitch hikers making a few easy dollars as Elevator counsellors 😛

 

[Deleted member 217926]

OR something like this could result from BDT processors. 😀 😀 😀

http://screencrave.frsucrave.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/terminator_robot.jpg

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

Especially if they let me play with the Holodeck !

And ya know wait until I'm dead to start using people as batteries and stuff. :lol:

 

[possiblyreefer]

I doubt we will be needing jigawatts to power it whatever it is. But light is photons. Photons travel in waves. How anyone could alter the direction of light seeing as it cant "bend" in a standard sense. Also about directing electrons, they are just a theory that best explains what is there.

 

[amnotanoobie]

I doubt we will be needing jigawatts to power it whatever it is. But light is photons. Photons travel in waves. How anyone could alter the direction of light seeing as it cant "bend" in a standard sense. Also about directing electrons, they are just a theory that best explains what is there.

Light is both a wave and a particle. Really depends on how you look at it.

 

[will_chellam]

I doubt we will be needing jigawatts to power it whatever it is. But light is photons. Photons travel in waves. How anyone could alter the direction of light seeing as it cant "bend" in a standard sense. Also about directing electrons, they are just a theory that best explains what is there.

But you *could* change the polarisation to represent a 1 or 0......

(if that's not already patented, I claim it officially as my idea)

 

[ambam]

Could graphics processing units be made from BDT technology? This may be the only way to completely conquer Crysis.

 

[jeyd02]

Could graphics processing units be made from BDT technology? This may be the only way to completely conquer Crysis.

think about it. if they build in the technology to the GPUs, company such as ATI, Nvidia or any graphic card maker will be to waste. they will be obsolete as soon as "these" cards are thrown out to the streets. saddly Nvidia, Ati, or any graphic card incorporation will be down hill. So by foreseeing these exceptions, it'll be a hard decision for them. but let's not jump to conclusion yet, i would love to see these in A gpu as well to finally take advantage of all software gpu hungry... Let's at least expect this to happen near the future...

time will tell.

 

[wolfram23]

Light is composed of electrons. Electricity travels at the speed of light minus the resistance in it's path. 640k should be enough for anyone...

Light is completely different than electrons. Light has no charge. What it does have, though, is wave/particle duality. Nothing else known to humans has that property.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron - nothing about it having anything remotely similar to light.

 

[doive1231]

If we get these CPUs in the future, I really would worry about my robot butler.

 

[goalguy876]

We'll get there eventually. I remember when an 8mb flash drive was a big deal.... Or 64mb or RAM

 

[Haserath]

We'll get there eventually. I remember when an 8mb flash drive was a big deal.... Or 64mb or RAM

So, you mean were going to make these terahertz processors before the world ends in 2012? That's amazingly fast 😛 .