IBM drills holes into optical chips for terabit-per-second speed

IBM researchers have built a prototype optical chip that can transfer a terabit of data per second, using an innovative design requiring 48 tiny holes drilled into a standard CMOS chip, facilitating the movement of light. This new technology is much faster and much more power-efficient than today's optics. 


Optical chips, which move data with light instead of electrons, are commonly used for interconnects in today's supercomputers and can be found in IBM systems such as Power 775 and Blue Gene. Optical technology is favored over electrical for transmitting high-bandwidth data over longer distances, which is why it's used for telecommunications networks.


The Holey Optochip uses 4.7 watts in delivering nearly one trillion bits per second, enough to download 500 HD movies. At 5.2 mm by 5.8 mm, it's about one-eighth the size of a dime.


IBM researches have recently said that: "We're in a group within IBM Research, looking at communications technologies we'll need for future computers, particularly for crunching big data, and analytics applications when you have to have tons of bandwidth in the system," he said. "Our mission is to prototype technologies and show what's possible, to drive the industry to commercial solutions that we can then procure and put into our systems."


IBM researchers also recently made a breakthrough in quantum computing, which could eventually lead to computers exponentially more powerful than today's.