11 replies to this topic

[DavARei]

I caught in the WSJ yesterday morning that IBM has made a huge break through.
They have figured out how to implement fiber optic connectors in place of copper in chips and mobo's.
They anticipate the connectors will be 8 times faster than current copper based setups with speeds hitting "160 billion bits per second".

and these links on the subject:
http://www.verivox.d.......=47529&pm=1
and:
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf...ransceiver.html

I'm sure it'll cost a mint when it hits the streets ... but imagine the possibilities

[m.oreilly]

whoa, now that would really be sumtin

[Sphere]

I'm guessing the
"Supercomputer" will lose it's status... and nobody with a really decent pc can say they don't know if light is fast!

[chriso_86]

Yup yup yup, IBM makes all the cool stuff!!! hehehehe

[bluerip]

another step closer towards building my holodeck! nice

[stormrosson]

awsome this will be a huge performance gain, oh Sphere, light and electricity travel at the same speed under Ideal conditions. The gain will be from the lack of resistance in the optic fiber. Also electricity doesn't travel thru the inside of a copper/metallic conducter, but on the surface of 1 or multiple (stranded) thas why fine stranded wire is rated higher than a corresponding size solid conducter

Edited by stormrosson, 30 March 2007 - 03:57 AM.

[Camaro]

Maybe I am missing something Storm, could be the distance's involved but light is a bit faster then electricity isn't it.

[David_Heavey]

The Stormeister is correct:

Quote

Electricity and light travel at approximately 186,000 miles (or 300,000,000 meters) per second, which is seven times around the equator in one second.

Source

[Sphere]

stormrosson, on Mar 30 2007, 05:55 AM, said:

awsome this will be a huge performance gain, oh Sphere, light and electricity travel at the same speed under Ideal conditions. The gain will be from the lack of resistance in the optic fiber. Also electricity doesn't travel thru the inside of a copper/metallic conducter, but on the surface of 1 or multiple (stranded) thas why fine stranded wire is rated higher than a corresponding size solid conducter

I know, I study Applied Physics.

No, the speed gain will be from the amount of data send through one line. As opposed to a copper wire, in one optic fibre line, there can be almost uncountable (okay, not entirely uncountable) amounts of data streams flow at the same time (different angles of entry, different wavelength are already two methods to send in the case of the entry angle 8 different streams)

Thus, a higher dataflow despite the fact that the speed of which the data travels is pretty close to the same (light actually is, in theory, slightly faster, see Einsteins Relativity Theory)


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For those who don't completely understand the physics of fibre optics, here's a short and as simple as I can explanation.

A fibreoptic wire looks a bit like concentric circles when you look into it (ok, it's way thinner offcourse!)

The optical data can enter this wire at 8 points, namely the top, and then every 45 degrees around the circle another one.

A lightwave entering the fibreoptic cable, kinda follows the following pattern, every layer breaks the ray a bit towards the center.
This makes the light follow a sort of sinus path, until it's bounced at the edge of a wire. (I won't go into detail about how this all works.

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Then, at every entry point, there offcourse needs to be an exit point. So this must be very carefully calibrated, or else the wire is useless for the 8point entry system. I'm guessing, for inside a computer, they'll be able to calculate this to maximize the dataflow.

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Next, there's the matter of wavelength. Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but lightwaves can be send through fringes, making them brake and create light and dark spots on a wall (please consult Wikipedia for details of that).

Since every wavelenght has a different spacing between the points on a wall that are lit, and which are dark, usually the fourth top from the center highest is used as the dataspot.

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So, with the knowledge of all wavelengths having different points and multiple waves can be send through one wire, you can hopefully now a bit imagine that on all 8 points you can at least send 200 (yes, 200) different datastreams at the same time. thus 200*8 makes 1600 bits per transfer. at the speed of light.

This is not entirely true, because sending only one bit is pretty useless, the data must carry an identifier, so the computer knows which data is belonging to what process, but you get the idea I hope.


If you have questions, you're free to ask offcourse!

[DavARei]

I just like stairing at the pretty circles :crazy:


... so was calling it a reduced lag time a mis-nomer on me?
Rather I shold have beat down the skinny copper for not hauling enough juice?

[stormrosson]

thanx Sphere, pretty obvious my 40 yr old HS physics class was teaching us the reason dead birds can't fly....duh.....I definitely was unaware of the complexity of optic data transmission, I think I have a much better concept both of the hardware functions and the application of the technology itself....... anyhoo thx to your accurate knowledge of the factors involved, I don't feel nearly as ignorant as I did about 2 days ago........anyway I'm trying in my own inept fashion, to thank you bud for sharing your accurate and easily understandable knowledge on this process with me and I suspect all of us!.......good work BFDave and or Cam , in an attempt to save a little face, I did mention that the speed of light and elec are theoretically equal....under IDEAL..conditions. OK I realize thats a bit ambiguous but temperature and matching co-effiencies of conductivity in disimilar conductive materials.................errrrr thats about all I can remember from the Cro-Magnon era when I attended errrrrrr whatever they called it back then, prolly wasn't called school maybe, perhaps, could be....

Edited by stormrosson, 01 April 2007 - 04:23 AM.

[Camaro]

no problem, I def learned a few new things, I knew abit about the electric current but the optic is all new to me I was under the impression that it was one solid light wave.