07-04-2009, 08:54 PM
ABSTRACT
Computers have become an indispensable part of life. We need computers everywhere, be it for work, research or in any such field. As the use of computers in our day-to-day life increases, the computing resources that we need also go up. For companies like Google and Microsoft, harnessing the resources as and when they need it is not a problem. But when it comes to smaller enterprises, affordability becomes a huge factor. With the huge infrastructure come problems like machines failure, hard drive crashes, software bugs, etc. This might be a big headache for such a community. Optical Computing offers a solution to this situation.
An Optical Computer is a hypothetical device that uses visible light or infrared beams, rather than electric current, to perform digital computations. An electric current flows at only about 10 percent of speed of light. By applying some of the advantages of visible and/or IR networks at the device and component scale, a computer can be developed that can perform operations very much times faster than a conventional electronic computer.
Optical computing describes a new technological approach for constructing computerâ„¢s processors and other components. Instead of the current approach of electrically transmitting data along tiny wires etched onto silicon. Optical computing employs a technology called silicon photonics that uses laser light instead. This use of optical lasers overcomes the constraints associated with heat dissipation in todayâ„¢s components and allows much more information to be stored and transmitted in the same amount of space.
Optical computing means performing computations, operations, storage and transmission of data using light. Optical technology promises massive upgrades in the efficiency and speed of computers, as well as significant shrinkage in their size and cost. An optical desktop computer is capable of processing data up to 1,00,000 times faster than current models.
