In this file photo taken on June 20, 2016, a Chinese engineer shows the many-core processor of Sunway TaihuLight, a Chinese supercomputer, in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Performing 93 quadrillion calculations per second, it is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. (Xinhua)
Israeli researchers have reportedly discovered technologies that would enable computer to run 100 times faster through the use of terahertz microchips.
The findings were made by Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) physicist Uriel Levy and his team, after three years of research, said sources from the university.
Now, two major challenges stand in the way of creating the terahertz microchip: overheating and scalability.
However, in a paper published this week in Laser and Photonics Review, Levy, head of HU's Nano-Opto Group, and HU emeritus professor Joseph Shappir have shown proof of the concept for an optic technology that integrates the speed of optic (light) communications with the reliability of electronics.
Optic communications encompass all technologies that use light and transmit through fiber optic cables, such as the Internet, emails, text messages, phone calls, the cloud and data centers, among others.
Optic communications are super fast but in microchips they become unreliable and difficult to replicate in large quantities, said Levy.
Now, by using a Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (MONOS) structure, Levy and his team have come up with a new integrated circuit that uses flash memory technology - the kind used in flash drives and discs-on-key - in microchips.
If successful, this technology will enable standard 8-16 gigahertz computers to run 100 times faster and will bring all optic devices closer to the holy grail of communications: the terahertz chip.
"This discovery could help fill the 'THz gap' and create new and more powerful wireless devices that could transmit data at significantly higher speed than currently possible," Levy said. "In the world of hi-tech advances, this is game-changing technology."
Meir Grajower, the leading HU PhD student on the project, said that it will now be possible to manufacture any optical device with the precision and cost-effectiveness of flash technology.
