SO LONG, COPPER

摘要

Meanwhile, IBM is taking an entirely different approach to preserving Moore's Law with its "nanophotonic avalanche photodetector," so-named because an incoming light pulse triggers the release of a few charge carriers, each of which frees some others, and so on, until the original signal has been amplified several times. Until recently, existing avalanche devices could not be used to detect fast optical signals because the avalanche effect took too long to build up. However, the new device- said to be the fastest ever built- can receive optical data at a rate of 40 GBps and simultaneously multiply them by ten. Plus, they operate with a supply of just 1.5V, so they could conceivably be powered by an AA battery instead of the 20V to 30V required by conventional devices. According to IBM, being based on standard silicon and germanium, it can be produced using standard chip manufacturing processes.