Deal brings optical connections to Sun supercomputer

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Luxtera envisions future versions of its technology allowing data transfer on a single fiber-optic strand to reach 100 gigabits per second, then 1 terabit per second, and eventually 10 terabits per second. The company is developing technology now that permits 10 wavelengths of light to be transferred simultaneously. (Each wavelength corresponds to a specific frequency and color of light.)

Luxtera will start shipping its first sample chips to customers in February 2006, said Gabriele Sartori, vice president of marketing. Those models will use a single wavelength of light and will go into production a year later, he said.

Defense work
For now, Sun's goal is to build the Defense Department-funded technology prototypes. The work, to be completed by the end of 2006, is phase two of a plan called the High Performance Computing Systems program administered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Sun, Cray and IBM are vying to make it to phase three, the goal of which is to actually build a machine based on the prototypes. More than one company could be selected. Phase three had been expected to be done by 2009 or 2010, but now the machines it will fund are due to arrive by 2011.

Phase two will incorporate proximity communications and Luxtera's optoelectronic technology, but most likely won't yield a full-fledged computer, Vildibill said. "I don't believe we'll have a fully functioning computer system prototype by end of phase two," he said.

Proximity communication itself could well arrive by 2008 or 2009, Sun has said.

Sun hopes its DARPA-funded machine will swing the supercomputer innovation pendulum back toward mammoth machines and away from "cluster" systems, in which many small, independent machines are connected with high-speed networks and a powerful switch. The ultimate hope is that data transfers across the system will have as close to the same speeds and delays as local chip-to-chip communications, Vildibill said.

"Ideally you'd want to see a one-to-one ratio," Vildibill said. "The trend in the industry is going the wrong way."

[fiberguy2]

Speed of electrons?

Please confirm that the author of the article stated that electrons travel slower than photons.
I have been under the impression that both photons and electrons travel at the speed of light. The reason why the optical transmission is superior is that more bandwidth capacity exists in optical transmission designs versus copper based systems in the same time periods.

It's bandwidth not speed that makes the big difference.

Fiberguy2

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Light versus electrons

As I understand it, there is a propagation delay
as the heat increases in a device. Therefore,
electrons travelling through a conventional
electronic connection will travel slower than a
photon of light due to the heat generated.
Obviously, if the medium is a super-conductor,
there is no heat loss and thus you achieve the
theoretical maximum speed. The physics I leave
to others to explain.

[alek_nedic]

Go optical

http://www.analogstereo.com/cassette_deck_clarion.htm