grx1042@uoft02.utoledo.edu (Steve Snodgrass) (02/27/90)
I'd like to get a few opinions or a discussion going on this: What does everyone think about the possibility of optronics or optical computers? Is this feasible; does it make sense? It kind of puts you in a whole different realm, since photons are uncharged. /\=======================================================================/\ \/ Reality: Steve Snodgrass |"Volts embodied intent, and Amps were the \/ /\ -^-^- Cyberspace -^-^- | runners who carried out those intentions, /\ \/ GRX1042@uoft02.utoledo.edu| against the Ohms." -Gregory Benford, ToL \/ /\ GRX1042@uoft02.BITNET | Sleep is a luxury, spare time a myth. -me /\ \/ uoft02::GRX1042 (DECnet) | Recumbent Amigas - the only way to hack. \/
taplin@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Brad Taplin) (03/01/90)
In article <19.25e972d8@uoft02.utoledo.edu> grx1042@uoft02.utoledo.edu >I'd like to get a few opinions or a discussion going on this: What does >everyone think about the possibility of optronics or optical computers? Is >this feasible; does it make sense? It kind of puts you in a whole different >realm, since photons are uncharged. My Keywords line says it all. -- ######################################################################## "...I've gotten two thousand fourteen times smarter since then..." -MCP Brad Taplin, alum, magna sin laude, afloat? taplin@thor.acc.stolaf.edu ########################################################################
dennis@cpac.washington.edu (Dennis Gentry) (03/01/90)
Steve Snodgrass writes:
I'd like to get a few opinions or a discussion going on this:
What does everyone think about the possibility of optronics or
optical computers?
I'll break with Usenet tradition and offer no opinion, only
excerpts from an article (from "OE Reports, The Internation
Newspaper of Optical and Optoelectronic Applied Science and
Engineering", published by SPIE, The Internations Society for
Optical Engineering", March, 1990, p.1)
OPTICAL COMPUTER: Is concept becoming reality?
Digital optical processor demonstrated.
AT&T scientists announced on January 29 that they had succeeded
in building the world's first digital optical processor. "The
digital optical processor is a technological milestone," said
William H. Ninke, director of the Information Systems Research
laboratory at AT&T Bell Labs. "This wireless processor uses
lasers to transmit information internally and employs optical
devices to process the information." The optical processor
demonstrated at Bell Labs operates at 1 million cycles per
second, less than most personal compuuters. But AT&T scientists
are optimistic that an optical computer operating at serveral
hundred million cycles per second--faster than most
supercomputers--is possible in the near future.
The switching is handled by S-SEEDs (Symmetric
Self-Electro-optic Effect Devices), optical switches with a
potential speed of 1 billion operations per second using a
switching energy of about 1 picojoule. They are based on
GaAs-AlGaAs technology and are fabricated by molecular beam
epitaxy. Each device is 5um squar and contains two mirrors with
controllable revlectivity. There are 32 S-SEEDs on each of four
arrays within the processor. Each S-SEED can drive two inputs.
The article goes on to interview Alan Huang, head of the Optical
Computing Research Department at Bell Labs. Mr. Huang thinks
that the chief advantage of optical processing technology is
that processors will become 1,000 or 10,000 bit processors,
rather than the current 16 or 32 bits.
Mr. Huang also describes the S-SEEDS as essentially light-
operated RS flipflops: incoming photons change the state of a
mirror from 10 percent to 60 percent reflectivity. To make
logic gates, the S-SEEDS are reset to "0" before use. And
although they are currently running the logic at 1 million
cycles per second, the devices are said to be capable of a
billion cycles per second.
Dennis Gentry
(dennis@cpac.washington.edu)