World's smallest laser cracks open the door to THz CPU race

mir

Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago, paving the way for a host of innovations, including superfast computers that use light instead of electrons to process information, advanced sensors and imaging.

full link :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090816171003.htm

so... THz CPU... do you think we will live to see that ? and how awesome it would be !

duckster

People then would feel the same way people felt a few years ago about the MHz.

mir

and I wonder what it would take to make those THz not enough and keep computers slow and buggy :P

tich

and I wonder what it would take to make those THz not enough and keep computers slow and buggy tongue

Either a new CryTek engine, or Bill Gates remaining alive :P

julien_saadeh

I had an imagination that this would happen. Lights inside a computer instead of wires. Sounds cool of an idea.
But sounds dumb of an architecture though...

rolf

duckster wrotePeople then would feel the same way people felt a few years ago about the MHz.

Mhz were refined. Gigahertz were fat. Terahertz are like.. uh... ok whatever
I think they have hit a ceiling with Ghz and electric technology, if you notice nothing seems to be going over 3-4 Ghz for a couple of years now, so we might very well see a switch in technology.

julien_saadeh

rolf wrote
duckster wrotePeople then would feel the same way people felt a few years ago about the MHz.
Mhz were refined. Gigahertz were fat. Terahertz are like.. uh... ok whatever
I think they have hit a ceiling with Ghz and electric technology, if you notice nothing seems to be going over 3-4 Ghz for a couple of years now, so we might very well see a switch in technology.

That's right. They are using Nitrous cooling (~ -200'C) in order to OC the CPU to 5GHz.

Xsever

Remember the late Pentium 4 days. They hit the ceiling with frequency! So, they switched to core technology -> Dual Core -> Tri Core -> Quad Core. Then, they added threads to the cores and started improving on those.

I am not worried about Intel and AMD coming up with new ideas for improvement. Do not look at the frequency when it comes for CPU. Look at real time performance.

I think nanotechnology and Quantum Computing are going to be the next thing (10 years from now maybe).

mir

they just have to sell it to us in incremental ways !!

give me my THz CPU alreadyyy !

stevejack

Hi...
Here is some information regarding Thz CPU race....By using such an unorthodox technique, the researchers have been able to overcome the minimum size limitation to lasers, and they even claim spasers could be made as small as 1nm in diameter. Peeking into the (not too near) future, this could improve magnetic data storage beyond its current physical limits, and even lead to the development of optical computers that "can operate at hundreds of terahertz" -- and here you were, thinking that your brand spanking new Core i7 system with Blu-ray was future-proof.

mir

:)
:cool:
cool info.. thanks for sharing... wish to live long enough to see that happening :D

J4D

mir wrote:)
:cool:
cool info.. thanks for sharing... wish to live long enough to see that happening :D

i guess we will not live long enough to witness the laser age unless a major break threw was achieved :D

try to remember how long it took us from the first (PERSONAL COMPUTER) till now well i guess you need to double that to reach the Thz age we are still in 4.shi ghz ! its a long road ahead :D