IBM's Holey Optochip moves terabit of info per second (images)

Big Blue's new chip architecture is capable of transferring 500 HD movies a second, or the entire Web archive of the U.S. Library of Congress in an hour. And it can be produced today.

Daniel Terdiman March 7, 2012 9:01 p.m. PT

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Holey Optochip

According to IBM, its scientists created a new kind of chip, known as the Holey Optochip, that's capable of transferring a trillion bits of information per second.

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Back of Holey Optochip

This is a photomicrograph of the back of IBM's Holey Optochip, with its lasers and photodectors visible through substrate holes.

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Full optical module

This is IBM's Holey Optochip, seen packaged into a "full connectorized optical module [with its] holes clearly evident on the back of the CMOS chip," according to IBM.

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Holey Optochip cross-section

A conceptual cross-section of IBM's Holey Optochip, which can move data at a terabit per second, showing its holes drilled through the standard CMOS chip and flip-chip attached VCSEL and photodiode arrays, according to IBM.