Developers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, have designed a brand new data chip that has set a new world record for transmitting the most data at once in the fastest speeds possible, via just a single chip and optical laser.
The chip was able to transmit 1.8 petabits a second. This is equal to 1,000 terabytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes. This is faster than that of twice the total internet traffic around the world at once.
According to a press release from DTU, the light source utilized a customized optical chip that uses the light from a single infrared laser to create a rainbow spectrum of many colors, or many other frequencies in other words.
‘All the colours are fixed at a specific frequency distance from each other – just like the teeth on a comb – which is why it is called a frequency comb. Each colour (or frequency) can then be isolated and used to imprint data. The frequencies can then be reassembled and sent over an optical fibre, thus transmitting data. Even a huge volume of data, as the researchers have discovered,’ DTU added.
What is special about this chip is that it produces a frequency comb with ideal characteristics for fiber-optical communications – it has high optical power and covers a broad bandwidth within the spectral region that is interesting for advanced optical communications.
In fact, some of the characteristic parameters were achieved by coincidence and not by design. However, with efforts in my team, we are now capable to reverse engineer the process and achieve with high reproducibility microcombs for target applications in telecommunications.
Victor Torres Company, professor at Chalmers University of Technology, and lead researcher
Other researchers involved believe that this technology can be further scaled up and make the chip operate even astronomically faster than it already is.
Our calculations show that—with the single chip made by Chalmers University of Technology, and a single laser—we will be able to transmit up to 100 Pbit/s. The reason for this is that our solution is scalable—both in terms of creating many frequencies and in terms of splitting the frequency comb into many spatial copies and then optically amplifying them, and using them as parallel sources with which we can transmit data. Although the comb copies must be amplified, we do not lose the qualities of the comb, which we utilize for spectrally efficient data transmission.
Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe, Head of the Centre of Excellence for Silicon Photonics for Optical Communications (SPOC) at DTU
Moreover, Oxenløwe believes that this technology will certainly help pave the way for the coming new generation of internet and other devices, though more research and development is required.
In other words, our solution provides a potential for replacing hundreds of thousands of the lasers located at Internet hubs and data centres, all of which guzzle power and generate heat. We have an opportunity to contribute to achieving an Internet that leaves a smaller climate footprint.
All over the world, work is being done to integrate the laser source in the optical chip, and we’re working on that as well. The more components we can integrate in the chip, the more efficient the whole transmitter will be. I.e. laser, comb-creating chip, data modulators, and any amplifier elements. It will be an extremely efficient optical transmitter of data signals.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel 12:4
We all know how long it generally takes to upload/download say a 5gb video or file. Now try to fathom a million gigs being transmitted in just a second. Now THAT’S fast.
As the scientists mentioned, this type of technology, with more innovations to come, will certainly be trojan horse for the new internet systems, 6G, all-time omni-surveillance and monitoring, and metaverse. When the metaverse was first introduced by the media last year, the idea of real-time and “real-world” was touted as being the future by 2030. This chip technology certainly bridges that gap.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Forgot what this chip will eventually lead to, and wondered (with great admiration) at how fast its capability for byte transfer is. That’s crazy fast.
Some “parameters were achieved by coincidence and not by design”. Maybe Satan has a hand in it (loser that he is), as with the other technological devices that picked up pace rapidly in development and distribution within a few years.