I like Intel. I am a fan. These guys have been innovators as long as I have been in the computer industry, and that’s a while now.
I saw an article today that has my brain sparkling. Apparently Intel has been doing research in a field called silicon photonics and have a prototype data connection that moves data at 50Gbps–that’s 50 Giga-bits per second. This is like downloading a feature film in high-definition in one second! And Intel thinks the technology can be pushed to 1 Tbps–a Tera-bit per second! That could backup your entire laptop in one second!
This is truly revolutionary. It’s difficult even to conceive the ramifications such an advance might have. One thing is sure; it will change the way we think abut and use computers. Below are links to some articles on the topic. It’s pretty amazing.
Yes, the speed of moving data at a tera-bit/sec is impressive but moving it is easy compared to the I/O on both ends that is required to make it useful. Cisco showed a switch last year that operated at similar speed. Even with solid state storage the slow part is still reading and writing the 1′s and 0′s.
True enough. Still I think this is an important breakthrough and perhaps one day it might lead to faster storage devices as well.