Report: IBM to unveil chip with optical connections
Chip would allow data files the size of a high-definition movie to transmit over short distance in a fraction of a second.
International Business Machines scientists plan to unveil a prototype chip on Monday that uses optical connections to increase the speed of moving data among chips to eight times that of previous technologies, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The chip's speed, clocked at 160 billion bits of data a second, would allow a high-definition movie to be transmitted over a short distance in a fraction of a second, compared with the half-hour it takes over home broadband connections, IBM said in the Journal. The technology could pave the way for devices that almost instantly transmit a digital X-ray to a doctor's handheld screen, a seismic analysis to an oil engineer's workstation or movies around home networks, the Journal reported.