Intel’s new superchip
Intel is ready to announce a new chip that moves data along lasers instead of wires. That means the data moves much faster and that could revolutionize the data communications industry. Janet Babin reports.
TEXT OF STORY
SCOTT JAGOW: Intel has a big announcement today. The company believes it’s come up with the Holy Grail of computer chips. It moves data along lasers instead of wires. From the Innovations Desk at North Carolina Public Radio, Janet Babin reports.
JANET BABIN: Silicon chips have been getting faster and smaller for years, but they can only get so small.
The New York Times reports that researchers created the newfangled chip by gluing a light-emitting substance onto a standard chip. The result is data moving faster than it ever could on a silicon chip.
It could speed up communications devices and computers.
Joe Wilcox is an analyst at Jupiter Research. He’s taking a wait-and-see approach to the discovery.
JOE WILCOX: “A potentially breakthrough technology isn’t really breakthrough until it reaches the marketplace.”
Wilcox says the new chip is likely years away from commercialization.
Intel partnered with the University of Southern California at Santa Barbara to make the chip.
In Durham, North Carolina, I’m Janet Babin for Marketplace.