Submitted by “IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that their researchers have demonstrated the first silicon-based chip capable of operating at frequencies above 500 GHz – 500 billion cycles per second – by cryogenically ‘freezing’ the chip to 451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (4.5 Kelvins).” Now that’s what I’d like to see in the new PowerBook. Oh, wait.
This just proves the Intel switch was the right thing to do! Imagine if Apple had chosen a cryogenically frozen chip for the Macbook! People would be up in arms about the machine giving them severe cold contact burns!
Mmm, I’m Dutch, I’m more accustomed to cold than to warmth.
How does this have anything to do with the Intel/IBM switch? I am using a 17 inch dual core INtel pwoerbook and you wont believe the amount of heat it is generating. You literally cant touch the keyboard! Is that what you were referring to when you said the Intel switch was right to do? I am not attacking your personally but both Intel and IBM chips run hot! How much the actual difference in thermal output is I dont care to know but the point of my post is that they are both flipping hot!
I was being facetious.
That said, Intel’s chips don’t run particularly hot. Apple just doesn’t move enough air through the Macbooks to keep the temperatures down. My Macbook gets about as hot as my Inspiron 8200 (though the hot areas are more localized on the Macbook), even though the P4-M in the latter has almost double the power dissipation.
Very unlikely though as it would involve selling a fast computer.
Taken from IBM site:
“By comparison, 500 GHz is more than 250 times faster than today’s cell phones, which typically operate at approximately 2 GHz.”
I don´t think i have ever seen any cell phones with 2 GHz CPU:s.
Looks like we’re talking oscillators, not CPUs. It doesn’t mean that much to OSNews readers if they can get one transistor doing 500 Gs. If they can get 3 million doing it in one square inch, then there will be much rejoicing.
I think they’re referring to the fact that Cell phone transmitters operate in the 1900 MHz band here in the US.
Which is a completely meaningless comparison, but I digress.
You can be correct on that.
Not totally meaningless, as such a chip would enable software defined microwave signals.
———“By comparison, 500 GHz is more than 250 times faster than today’s cell phones, which typically operate at approximately 2 GHz.”———-
That explains why so many windows based pda’s and smartphones are so seemingly slow when you use them. They don’t have enough horsepower to handle what’s being thrown at them.
.. lack of knowledge thing here again .. IMO :
As said above yes these GHz frequencies are used in phones etc but actually have nothing really to do with big data processing but with saving power as far as Ive heard .
Could someone knowledgeable of phone processor technology & this whole area please explain this one ?
Before this will end up in an utterly useless comments secton … .
Edited 2006-06-21 01:36
They are talking about transistor switching frequencies, not embedded processor frequencies. In order to generate the approximately 2ghz signal used by the radio portion of a cell phone, at least some part of the circuitry has to run at 2ghz switching speeds.
embedded processor clock frequencies in cell phones tend to be O(100-250) mhz, although that rate is growing.
I think what the news means to say is that IBM and GIT is able to keep increasing the speed of Silicon based chips to enable faster processing, whereas other chip manufacturers are having problems in making higher performance processors.
Comprendo ?
“Comprendo ?”
Tu sabras si comprendes o no…
(“Comprendo?” means “Do I understand?”)
Well, you actually realise that transistors are also used outside of PC chips ?
Operating integrated circuits ( not digital circuits ) at these frequencies can have many interesting applications for communications ( thus the comparison with phones is valid ). At these frequencies, radio waves approach infrared light frequencies, it is no wonder that some military applications are expected ( 🙁 )
So far, these frequencies where only acheivable with vacuum tube devices.
Well, that article is basically off topic for OSNews.
producing that kind of cooling is going to be expensive. no number of fans would work, you’d need something like liquid nitrogen.
The announcement states that this “thing” can operate around 350GHz in “room temperature.”
If this is all true, how come we’re not on ~100Ghz, 50Ghz, 20Ghz…. 10Ghz? 5Ghz cpu chips by now? (not rhetorical, i’m really asking..)
Because this chip is engineered to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except for running at high speeds.
Because when we say “GHz”, we mean different things. 500 GHz in this case is the switching speed of the transistor. When we say “GHz” with reference to processors, we’re talking about how often the central clock in the CPU ticks. The two things are quite different, and the latter is far more complicated than the former. In the former case, the transistor just switches once per clock. In the latter case, a dozen or more logic circuits change states and settle, current propagates from one part of the chip to the other, etc.
Which is better, a laptop burning your bits and pieces or freezing them?
Well technically it depends on who you are talking to I guess. The heat will render you sterile which means you can have promiscuous sex like Austin Powers….YEAH BABY! Or you can freeze your bits and put them in cryogenic storage…like Austin Powers for your future generations!