ScienceDaily: Computers and Internet News |
- Using holograms to improve electronic devices
- Future of computing? A step closer to a photonic future
- Better cache management could improve chip performance, cut energy use
- Switching with single photons: Switching effects caused by single photons is a step toward quantum computing
| Using holograms to improve electronic devices Posted: 19 Feb 2014 11:26 AM PST Scientists have demonstrated a new type of holographic memory device that could provide unprecedented data storage capacity and data processing capabilities in electronic devices.  |
| Future of computing? A step closer to a photonic future Posted: 19 Feb 2014 09:47 AM PST The future of computing may lie not in electrons, but in photons -- in microprocessors that use light instead of electrical signals. But these photonic devices are typically built using customized methods that make them difficult and expensive to manufacture. Now, engineers have demonstrated that low power photonic devices can be fabricated using standard chip-making processes. The team dubs this a major milestone in photonic technology.  |
| Better cache management could improve chip performance, cut energy use Posted: 19 Feb 2014 07:23 AM PST Cleverer management of the local memory banks known as 'caches' could improve computer chips' performance while reducing their energy consumption. Computer chips keep getting faster because transistors keep getting smaller. But the chips themselves are as big as ever, so data moving around the chip, and between chips and main memory, has to travel just as far. As transistors get faster, the cost of moving data becomes, proportionally, a more severe limitation.  |
| Posted: 19 Feb 2014 04:52 AM PST The idea to perform data processing with light, without relying on any electronic components, has been around for quite some time. In fact, necessary components such as optical transistors are available. However, up to now they have not gained a lot of attention from computer companies. This could change in the near future as packing densities of electronic devices as well as clock frequencies of electronic computers are about to reach their limits. Optical techniques promise a high bandwidth and low dissipation power, in particular, if only faint light pulses are needed to achieve the effect of switching. The ultimate limit is a gate-pulse that contains one photon only. A team of scientists has now managed to bring this almost utopian task into reality. The scientists succeeded in switching a medium -- a cloud of about 200 ultracold atoms -- from being transparent to being opaque for light pulses. This "single-photon-switch" could be the first step in the development of a quantum logic gate, an essential component in the field of quantum information processing.  |
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