An MIT student team has developed a way to integrate fiber optics — glass or plastic components that can transmit data using light waves — into computer chips, replacing copper wires that rely on electricity.
Using light instead of electricity can drop energy usage by about 95 percent in chip-to-chip communications and increase bandwidth tenfold, team member Alex Wright, a graduate student in the MIT Sloan School of Management, said. Incorporating the technology into massive data centers, run by tech giants like Facebook, she added, could help cut energy usage in these centers by up to 10 percent. “We’re replacing electricity with light and, with it, we’re ushering in a new era of energy efficiency,” Wright said.
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Using light instead of electricity can drop energy usage by about 95 percent in chip-to-chip communications and increase bandwidth tenfold, team member Alex Wright, a graduate student in the MIT Sloan School of Management, said. Incorporating the technology into massive data centers, run by tech giants like Facebook, she added, could help cut energy usage in these centers by up to 10 percent. “We’re replacing electricity with light and, with it, we’re ushering in a new era of energy efficiency,” Wright said.
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