Processors running at the speed of light?

[Jeff7181]

Someone's working on it =)
Article

 

[Mikki]

Scotty!! Ya gotta give me more speed!!

Thanks for the link mate, that's very interesting.... Wonder how a cpu built with that technology would overclock? :evil:

 

[Corporate Thug]

lol, the overclocking question would even boggle einsteins mind

 

[DivideBYZero]

I expect that the singnaling rate would need to increase if your wanted to 'overclock' it.

AFAIK they are talking about light emitting diodes of some kind and not an entire light-based CPU. certain parts of the architecture would be light based.

But then I could be 100% wrong as the tech is totally new...!

 

[Jeff7181]

A processor couldn't COMPLETELY use light, because you need to use electricity to make light... so I imagine things like the speed of the transistors that operate the lights and the speed that the light itself can turn on and off at would effect the speed of the processor.
In my opinion, it would make more sense that before seeing a processor that uses light, we'd probably see a motherboard that uses light to let the Northbridge communicate with the CPU and the Southbridge. And before that, you'd probably see fiber optic cable used for broadband internet connections... can you imagine, your cable line leaves your house, goes to the node, and is transferred over to fiber optic cable... say goodbye to pings above 10 ms =)