Fast As Light Chips to Arrive Soon, Go Both Ways
People who are clearly far more brilliant than I make me jealous. They also inspire and leave me in a state of awe, which is appropriate, because this is pretty awesome. An engineering team at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new type of computer circuit that operates by light rather than electricity. The nano rods from which this new circuit is made can be configured to behave like traditional electronics such as capacitors, resistors and so on. Unlike traditional devices, the new circuits are faster, smaller, cooler and lighter (pun absolutely intended). Perhaps coolest of all, though, is that these new circuits are able to flip orientations to perform different kinds of functions; the same chip might be able to act as both a CPU and a GPU, simply by switching functions on the fly. Pretty cool! Now we wait. It’s a shame patience isn’t one of my virtues.
Who knows–someday these just might make it into your next generation computer system running whatever OS the world seems to like most at the time, and be able to decode and encode 4k video with 20.1 audio in real time while sipping battery life like a sweet mimosa!
Source: Penn State University
