Super chips that makes PC 100 times
faster
Researchers have developed a technology that
could enable our computers — and all optic communication devices — to run 100
times faster through terahertz microchips.
“This discovery could help fill the ‘THz gap’
and create new and more powerful wireless devices that could transmit data at
significantly higher speeds than currently possible,” said one of the
researchers Uriel Levy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) in Israel.
“In the world of hi-tech advances, this is
game-changing technology,” Levy added.
Until now, two major challenges stood in the
way of creating the terahertz microchip — overheating and scalability.
However, in a paper published in the journal
Laser and Photonics Review, the researchers showed proof of concept for an optic
technology that integrates the speed of optic (light) communications with the
reliability — and manufacturing scalability — of electronics.
Optic communications encompass all
technologies that use light and transmit through fibre optic cables, such as
the internet, email, text messages, phone calls, the cloud and data centres,
among others.
Optic communications are super fast but in
microchips they become unreliable and difficult to replicate in large
quantities.
Now, by using a
Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (MONOS) structure, Levy and his team have
come up with a new integrated circuit that uses flash memory technology — the
kind used in flash drives and discs-on-key — in microchips.
If successful, this technology will enable
standard 8-16 gigahertz computers to run 100 times faster and will bring all
optic devices closer to the holy grail of communications — the terahertz chip,
the study said.
