Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Newest Computer Chips aren’t “Electronic””.
When you think of light traveling down some kind of narrow channel, which I know you do all the time you probably think – of high-speed internet connections, telephone lines or even those pre-lit Christmas trees. But did you know that Optical connections are actually taking the place of traditional metal traces in actual computer chips? This field is called silicon photonics and it’s not some kind of gimmicky speculative technology products that use silicon photonics are already being deployed in data centers by the millions to help keep up with how much pressure we’re increasingly putting on cloud systems these days, especially considering how Rapidly, AI is expanding. The basic idea is to use photons instead of electrons to move data around the best part is that chip makers are manufacturing the means to do so directly onto silicon Wafers, meaning that you don’t need costly exotic materials. In order to pull this off, silicon photonics uses wave guides that the light can move through as well as freaking laser beams as a light Source. These hybrid silicon lasers are made from both silicon and other semiconductors, such as indium and gallium compounds, so they can be built directly onto the chip, obviating the need for extra laser equipment outside the chip, which can be costly.
This technology has already been in use for a few years in transceivers that convert electrical signals to and from Optical ones. You plug them into a server and use fiber optic cable to connect to another server elsewhere in a data center. A to several kilometers away, a piece of tech, that’s also proven useful for supporting current 5G networks, but there’s been a more recent development that might make those external transceivers Obsolete and we’ll tell you about it right after we thank War Thunder for sponsoring this video War. Thunder is a free-to-play vehicle, combat game, immersion and Detail in the vehicles is at the Forefront with this game with over 2,000 vehicles from throughout history and the present there’s something for everyone to Pilot it’s available on almost all platforms, PC, Mac, PlayStation and Xbox. So get hooked up with some premium bonuses today by clicking the link below, instead of relying on a separate transceiver to handle the actual photonics part of the chain. Recent work has looked more at integrating silicon photonics directly onto a chip package in 2022.
Intel showed off a laser setup that used tiny micro rings to save enough space to fit the actual photonics next to the die, with each ring producing different light wavelengths, allowing more data to be transferred than if you just used. A single wavelength Intel also revealed a chip. They had been working on for DARPA in 2023 that used Optical chiplets. These chiplets sit on the same package as the actual compute die and are responsible for doing the conversions between electrical and Optical, so you’d be connecting fiber optics directly to these chiplets again eliminating the need for external transceivers when this Tech hits the marketplace but beyond the Cost advantages of moving photonics as close to the compute die as possible.
We might need silicon photonics more and more as the years go by, as our bandwidth needs just continue to grow. There’S a good chance, we’ll start hitting the limits of what’s possible with standard metal, traces in terms of power or data Integrity. The thinking is that it could be cheaper to use silicon photonics instead of trying to find ways to shove, more and more data down a metal trace and that photonics could offer a superior error rate to traditional Electronics. But silicon photonics isn’t just about ensuring the cloud can continue to deliver.
Fine YouTube videos like this one to your screen, because the general idea is put Optical technology into silicon. It has other applications, such as liar for self-driving cars, Healthcare Diagnostics that involve shooting light into tissues and even better sensors for AR and VR headsets. It’S unclear if silicon photonics will have a big role to play in home PCS at some point. But if you really want Optical Tech and your personal rig in the meantime, you could always just put in a Blu-ray Drive they’re, not dead. Yet, and thank you for popping by this episode of techwiki like the video, if you like it and dislike it, if you dislike it check out our other videos, comment below with video suggestions and don’t forget to subscribe and follow. Did you get all that? Okay, .