By splitting data into different colors of the light spectrum, a single computer chip was able to transmit a record 1.84 petabits of data per second over fiber optic cable. cable.
New Scientist reports that 1.84 petabits of bandwidth is enough to download 230 million photos per second over fiber optic cable, which is more than the traffic that travels through the entire backbone of the Internet every second.
Asbjorn Arvad Jørgensen of the Danish University of Technology in Copenhagen and his colleagues used a photonic chip – a technology that allows optical components to be embedded in computer chips – to split a data stream into thousands of separate channels. be separated and transmitted simultaneously for 7.9 km.
The team first split the data stream into 37 sections, each of which was sent over a separate strand of fiber optic cable. Then each such channel was divided into 223 data fragments that existed in separate slices of the electromagnetic spectrum. This “frequency comb” of equidistant peaks of light across the spectrum allowed data to be transmitted simultaneously in different colors without interfering with each other, greatly increasing the throughput of each core.
While data rates of up to 10.66 petabits per second have previously been achieved with bulky equipment, this study sets the record for data transfer using a single computer chip as a light source. This technology could enable the creation of simple single chips that can transfer much more data than current models, reducing energy costs and increasing throughput.
The volume of data sent during the experiment was so great that there is no computer that could provide or receive so much information so quickly. Jorgensen says that during the experiments, the team instead sent “dummy data” on each channel and checked the output on each channel to make sure all the data was sent and could be received unchanged.
“. we can say that the average Internet traffic in the world is about one petabit per second. What we transmit is twice as much. This is an incredibly large amount of data transmitted over a cable that is less than a square millimeter. It just shows that we can go a lot further with internet connectivity, like we do today,” Jorgensen said. stream. However, according to Jorgensen, they could be built into the chip itself, so the entire device would be the size of a matchbox.
Current devices for sending data using a single laser in a single slice of the spectrum. were scaled down to about that size, and according to Jorgensen, if the team’s device were built around the size of a small server, it could transfer as much data as the current 8251 matchbox-sized devices. Because each channel would need one, which the team managed to run through one cable.
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