IBM develops working 350 GHZ CPU

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sharukins

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/t...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Researchers at I.B.M. and the Georgia Institute of Technology are set to announce today that they have broken the speed record for silicon-based chips with a semiconductor that operates 250 times faster than chips commonly used today.

The achievement is a major step in the evolution of computer semiconductor technology that could eventually lead to faster networks and more powerful electronics at lower prices, said Bernard Meyerson, vice president and chief technologist in I.B.M.'s systems and technology group. He said developments like this one typically found their way into commercial products in 12 to 24 months.

The researchers, using a cryogenic test station, achieved the speed milestone by "freezing" the chip to 451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, using liquid helium. That temperature, normally found only in outer space, is just nine degrees above absolute zero, or the temperature at which all movement is thought to cease.

At 500 gigahertz, the technology is 250 times faster than chips in today's cellphones, which operate at 2 gigahertz. At room temperature, the chips operate at 350 gigahertz, far faster than other chips in commercial use today.

Mr. Meyerson compared the achievement to the development of the chips used in Wi-Fi networks. It was not until the semiconductor technology used in those networks was produced with silicon that wireless networking become affordable for consumer applications.

Dan Olds, a principal at the Gabriel Consulting Group, a technology consulting firm in Portland, Ore., said the development was significant because it showed that the chip industry had not yet reached its upper limits. "There's been talk that we've started to hit the physical limitations of chip performance," he said. "The news here is that we're not coming anywhere near the end in what processors are capable of."

Mr. Olds cautioned, however, that the technology was far from finding its way into commercial products any time soon, considering the performance leap it represents. Today's performance-hungry computer buyers, for example, are buying machines operating at about three gigahertz, he said.

John D. Cressler, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a researcher at the Georgia Electronic Design Center, said the work "redefines the upper bounds of what is possible" using silicon-germanium.

The research group included students from Georgia Tech and Korea University in South Korea, and researchers from I.B.M. Microelectronics. The results will be reported in the July issue of the technical journal IEEE Electron Device Letters.
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Cold Shadow said:
This is totally not comparable tot a normal CPU
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well, it's research. In a couple of years some of this tech will go into a "normal" CPU.

Pikelet said:
Wtf cellphone runs at 2Ghz? Or am i a technology retard.
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i was thinking the same thing
 
Yeah, the non-comparable part is where they got it running at 500ghz at near-absolute-zero. Obviously you can't expect to have consumer electronics pumping liquid helium, so I guess they'll have to settle for the room-temperature 350ghz version.

Still, whatever the hell this is, sounds like a pretty major breakthrough. I'd take it with a grain of salt, assuming we won't see any part of it for 5 years. Who knows, maybe the thing was produced on a frickin' huge process that would cost millions of dollars even in mass production. Definitely need more information before we can say it's that relevant or not.

Wtf cellphone runs at 2Ghz? Or am i a technology retard.
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Hah, they probably got mixed up with the fact the radio frequency they operate on.
 
Pikelet said:
Wtf cellphone runs at 2Ghz? Or am i a technology retard.
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It would have a battery life of 5 minutes and get so hot that you'd burn your hands holding the phone (assuming they could even get a 2GHz chip to fit into a plastic cell phone casing).
 
well, that about wraps it up for Cell.

IBM moving onto the next big thing. Cryogenic liquid cooling.
 
Nowhere is it stated how complex the logic of this chip is, it probably can hardly be called a processor. Nice to know they can get a transistor to switch @ 500GHz, but for now to me it falls into the same category as a quantumcomputer (2 linked q-bits =/= CPU); great for research and science, but not for the consumer. Maybe in 25 years.
 
Pikelet said:
Wtf cellphone runs at 2Ghz? Or am i a technology retard.
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No. they're off alot. But, it wouldn't surprise me if we did have cellphone(or morelike PDA chips that run at 2+ GHz in the next year or two)

Intel's xScale processors for PDA have been shown to run upto 1.25 GHz, but I don't think they ship in any products.
 
Burst-processing FTW!

Now the CS-geeks can play in 9000fps and still complain about drops and lag when they blunder and die! ;)
 
Furoba said:
PS5 to become liquid cooling fridge convergence device.
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first PS5 pictures:

12789744_35d0be92c8_m.jpg
 
Um i havn't look into Mobile Device processors but I am sure these things dont even come close in computing power in terms of registers, ALU functionality and register size. I suppose they could be running at 2Ghz frequencies because they are not handling the same loads in information as personnal computers. The simpler the cpu the easier it is to crank up the frequency. Frequency is only a part of the performance equation and it is very probable that a mobile processor running at 2Ghz can't do much in terms of performance compared to a personnal computer running at a fraction of the frequency.
 
sharukins said:
actually it is. Silicon based = comparable to normal CPU
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This is not even a CPU, from what I can tell.

I think they're comparing it to cellphones "at 2GHz" because they are comparing it to the radio chip in a cellphone. Also, notice that nowhere in the article is this referred to as a "processor"...
 
Ok my paper must have got this shit wrong. Cause it said 500 GHZ either way its not practical for normal use. At least not yet. Its a step in the right direction though. But before we get shit this fast. We have to get rid of the bus system. It doesnt work when the cpu is waiting for shit to get to it and is ideling like crazy waiting on your HDD and other shit to start working.

Thank god come next year Flashbooting will be starting.
 
Good for IBM, let me know when such a processor is practical for day to day computing kthx

Pikelet said:
Wtf cellphone runs at 2Ghz? Or am i a technology retard.
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Don't worry, years from now they will, and as usual, cellphones will have another stupid perk for no good reason. Because we all need 2GHz to call friends and family on a phone, y'know.
 
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