SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY : Optical Computing Could Step Up the Movement of Data
If you imagine a freeway where cars could pass through each other and make the traffic jam obsolete, you would have a pretty good idea of what AT&T; Bell Laboratories researchers were raving about last week at a laser and electronics conference at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Like congested freeways, traditional electronic computers--which use electrons as the basic messenger that carries data within the computer--bog down because only so many pieces of data, or cars, can pass through communication lanes without running into each other.
With optical computing, a futuristic technology that is being studied by Bell Labs and Japanese researchers, the physical barrier creating the jams could vanish, said David Miller, head of AT&T; Bell Labs’ photonic switching research in New Jersey.
Miller was one of several researchers who discussed the potential of optical computing at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, which drew about 7,000 scientists and technicians to Anaheim last week.
Optical computing uses packets of light, or photons, as the basic messengers to carry data within a computer. Unlike electrons, light particles are not subject to electrical interference and can pass through each other and deliver their data unscathed.
The light beams themselves can be theoretically controlled using tiny mirrors and prisms in ways that could mimic basic electronic components such as transistors and resistors.
Used in combinations that take advantage of both electronic and optical technology, computers of the future could reach performance levels a thousand times better than current supercomputers, Miller and other researchers believe. Such performance levels could yield a new generation of products such as video phones, Miller said.
Miller, along with fellow Bell Labs researcher Alan Huang, believes that optical computing has gained legitimacy in the past year as a viable path toward creating the next generation of supercomputers.
Once derided as hopelessly complicated, optical computers could be used to develop much-faster telephone switches by 1995, Miller said. AT&T; first demonstrated an optical transistor in 1986, and in January it unveiled its first optical microchip.
Skeptics of optical computers believe that conventional electronic-computing methods, when combined with new computer architectures, is a more practical approach to building faster computers.
For instance, Active Memory Technology Inc. in Irvine is building computers that incorporate a technology known as “parallel processing,” in which many processors are linked together to perform certain calculations faster than a conventional computer using a single, central processor.
With this approach, a computer can reach higher speeds by adding more “brains,” or processors, like breaking a traffic jam at a toll bridge by adding more lanes and toll booths to process the traffic.
