New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors • Hacker News Board

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#31

Post by jcims » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

dogber1 wrote: post #5

In reality, all-optical computing is mostly a terrible idea: fundamentally, it cannot reach the integration density of electronics. It boils down to the elementary differences between Fermions (electrons, neutrons, etc.) and Bosons (photons, etc.). Their intrinsic behavior determines the interaction with matter, i.e. conductive/absorptive properties. As a result, optical wires (waveguides) have to be sized roughly at…

(I swear I’m not in Fridman’s payroll.)

As a layperson I found this episode with Jeffrey Shainline an interesting discussion tangential to the topic of optoelectronic computing. The basic gist was that photons are good for communication, electrons are good for compute.

https://youtu.be/EwueqdgIvq4

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#32

Post by perihelions » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #27

It's very regrettable the author of this article omitted the citation to the paper. Why did they do that?

It's linked in the last paragraph.

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#33

Post by kragen » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #32

kragen wrote: post #27

It's very regrettable the author of this article omitted the citation to the paper. Why did they do that?

It's linked in the last paragraph.

Oh thank you, I'm an idiot. Somehow I overlooked the underline: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03866-9

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#34

Post by max_ » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:26 AM UTC

kfprt wrote: post #4

If this is the transistor moment what technology would an IC equivalent require?

First we need a new paradigm of computing that is consistent with how light behaves.

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#35

Post by perihelions » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:39 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #33

perihelions wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's linked in the last paragraph.

Oh thank you, I'm an idiot. Somehow I overlooked the underline: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03866-9

If you lack access to it, there's a draft preprint on the arXiv,

https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05811

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#36

Post by kragen » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:49 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #35

kragen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh thank you, I'm an idiot. Somehow I overlooked the underline: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03866-9

If you lack access to it, there's a draft preprint on the arXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05811

Thanks!

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#37

Post by vekerdyb » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

I always knew all those RGB lights will come in handy one day

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#38

Post by rewq4321 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #31

dogber1 wrote: post #5

In reality, all-optical computing is mostly a terrible idea: fundamentally, it cannot reach the integration density of electronics. It boils down to the elementary differences between Fermions (electrons, neutrons, etc.) and Bosons (photons, etc.). Their intrinsic behavior determines the interaction with matter, i.e. conductive/absorptive properties. As a result, optical wires (waveguides) have to be sized roughly at…

(I swear I’m not in Fridman’s payroll.) As a layperson I found this episode with Jeffrey Shainline an interesting discussion tangential to the topic of optoelectronic computing. The basic gist was that photons are good for communication, electrons are good for compute. https://youtu.be/EwueqdgIvq4

The specific timestamp for that part of the conversation: https://youtu.be/EwueqdgIvq4?t=2793

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#39

Post by rasguanabana » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

dogber1 wrote: post #5

In reality, all-optical computing is mostly a terrible idea: fundamentally, it cannot reach the integration density of electronics. It boils down to the elementary differences between Fermions (electrons, neutrons, etc.) and Bosons (photons, etc.). Their intrinsic behavior determines the interaction with matter, i.e. conductive/absorptive properties. As a result, optical wires (waveguides) have to be sized roughly at…

It’s not all about computing. It’s about avoiding conversion from electrical to optical signal (and back) at every network node, which is costly.

Re: New Optical Switch Up to 1000x Faster Than Transistors

#40

Post by singularity2001 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 6:39 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #13

dogber1 wrote: post #5

In reality, all-optical computing is mostly a terrible idea: fundamentally, it cannot reach the integration density of electronics. It boils down to the elementary differences between Fermions (electrons, neutrons, etc.) and Bosons (photons, etc.). Their intrinsic behavior determines the interaction with matter, i.e. conductive/absorptive properties. As a result, optical wires (waveguides) have to be sized roughly at…

Isn't this just a trade off? Is there never a scenario where you would trade transistor density for switching speed and lower power consumption?

Exactly. While this speed vs space trade off makes less sense in mobiles, it might make perfect sense in industrial settings. Imagine 3D computers the size of a room (Craigh 2) but a 1000 times faster than any TPU only cluster.