500-GHz by cryogenically "freezing"

[Strongbow]

500GHz :shock:

Brings a new meaning to liquid cooling if you ask me...
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/sho...leID=189500692

They messed up on the cell phone comparison though - has anyone ever heard of a 2GHz mobile phone? I know I haven't! :roll:

[cicide]

Actually, the analogy is broken yes, but not because the cells phones don't operation at 2GHz, they in fact do operate close to 2GHz as a frequency (modern cell phones operate on the 850MHz and 1850Mhz bands, 1850 being close to 2GHz). So comparing the speed a processor runs at to the frequency that a transciever operates at is pretty tenuous at best of a comparison...

[Steve Lux]

My Panasonic home phone is touted as being 5.8 GHz. I can be a few hundred yards away from the house and still talk on the phone.

[NeoGen]

A cell phone with a 2GHz processor? Now that would make up for a wicked fast snake game!

[spikey_richie]

Yeah, I think they mean they've managed to transmit a signal up at 500ghz. It's not like the GHz of a CPU which are clock cycles. This is a frequency of sound. (I THINK!)

[Strongbow]

Oh dear, lots of confusion on this thread!!!

The 500GHz is based on the clock speed of the chip, they were testing for the speed limits of silicon. They weren't testing transmitted electromagnetic waves (like VHF, UHF etc...).

It basically shows that the chip industry has a long way to go before getting anywhere near the limits of silicon. (although I'll probably read this in a few years and go "Puhhh, yeah right!")

So anyway, I'm still not sure why they mentioned a mobile phone as a comparison? ...the fastest phone at the moment runs at 624MHz on an XScale chip used for PocketPCs so I'm not sure where they got 2GHz from!



...has anyone got any spare liquid helium I can borrow? I want to pour it over my laptop to see if I can give it a boost! ;)

EDIT: Neogen - can you imagine playing snakes at that speed? LOL

[taters]

lol :D
I bet they overclocked their cellphone with some nitro or whatnot, hehe - thus the 2Ghz. :twisted:
I like the idea of having a 500GHz CPU... with some ludicrous amount of registers and an even more ludicrous amount of cache! (Hell, let's make RAM on-die! Like 1TB of it...)

Uhm...
"HDTV and movie-quality video to cellphones"... Yes! I would love to watch some high-def video on a 2" display, excellent idea.

[AMDave]

So any ideas on how to mass market a 4.5 Kelvin cooling device?
That temp is in itself a feat of science.
I think all the global data centres would have to jack up their rentals to cover the cost of turning their HVACs down below freezing point.

I think the real story is that they managed to do this with a close-to-conventional CPU and maintain processing long enough at that temp to be able to measure it. Often, conventional items get de-natured along the sub-zero freeze path as they approach 0 kelvin. I think this success bodes well for the manufacturing process design work that has been done.

At least they know the devices will work in space without a heating system.

Hey there's an idea.
Let's build a supremely fast CPU grid in orbit and hire it out...
Ah! Now I see the motivation. :roll:

[Steve Lux]

Well, outerspace isn't that cold... But shielded from radiation/heat and cosmic rays with sufficient heat sinking the chips should be able to maintain very cold temperatures. But the opportunity would exist for large processing farms in space. Data could be beamed back and forth via lazer light. Hell of a service call when problems pop up though.

[Strongbow]

"Damn, Windows has hung again!"
"Ok who's going up there to flick the power switch off & on?"