IBM Unveils 8 Terabit Optical Network Prototype

By John Read - Published March 1st 2008 - 17:34

Researchers at IBM have developed a prototype of an an optical network that is both extremely fast and energy efficient. The new technology, which uses lights to transmit data rather than wires, could deliver huge amounts of bandwidth to a variety of devices, from supercomputers to cell phones.

This technology is capable of transmitting data at a rate of eight trillion bits (terabits) per second, the equivalent of about 5,000 streams of high definition video, using only the power of a single 100-watt light bulb. This kind of speed could potentially bring high definition video to mobile phones. The energy efficiency is consistent with recent green computing initiatives as well. The "green optical link" consumes 100 times less energy than a typical electrical interconnect (wire) while transmitting over a 100 meter long link. It consumes ten times less energy than currently available commercial optical links.

Last year IBM developed an optical transceiver that could transmit a high definition movie in under a second. This year, according to project researcher Clint Schow, " [IBM has] connected those high speed chips through printed circuit boards with dense integrated optical 'wiring.' Now [IBM has] built an even faster transceiver and have moved the optical components away from custom devices to more standard parts procured from a volume manufacturer, taking an important step toward commercializing the technology."

Potential applications of this technology range over a multitude of devices and span a variety of industries:

High definition becomes ubiquitous - This technology will enable widespread HD video sharing and video on-demand by increasing the bandwidth of video servers. Video hosting web servers could use the technology to access libraries with millions of high-definition movies and video clips in seconds. By incorporating an optical data port in HD video recorders, personal mp3 and video players, laptops, cell phones, etc. HD video content could be stored and displayed on high- resolution external screens.
Increased Bandwidth for Supercomputing - The increased bandwidth provided by the optical data interconnects will allow supercomputers to have a profound impact in many fields: offering improved molecular dynamics calculations, accelerating drug discoveries, providing accurate weather/climate modeling, as well advancing our understanding of sub- nuclear physics such as quantum chromodynamics.
Consumer electronics - "Scaled-down" versions of the optical interconnect technology may find applications in a range of consumer products. For example, in cell phones, one chip could sit in the base of the phone and the other could sit in the display, allowing for very large files, even high-definition content move from one to the other. The advantage is that by using optics instead of wires, the display can be flipped up and down or moved from side-to-side without being impeded by electrical wires.
Patient Care - Physicians and researchers could send high-definition images such as MRIs, heart scans which are huge files, for real-time analysis and 3-D visualization.

IBM's prototype is the world's fastest and most integrated optical data bus that could lead to connecting an unprecedented number of high-performance computers to work as a single system.

[via IBM]

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