3 ms·

So does this imply an opportunity to improve computing speed by 2997?

• dogma1138 11y ago
  No because the speed of the components with the current designs is still limited by the switching speed of the masking matrix. And in any case you will still need to transform photons back to electrons twice. The speed of electrons or EM wave propagation vs photons isn't a player in why photonic computing might be better. The ability to encode more data into the photons, a much more power efficient and inherently parallel design are. Also because light has much more shorter wavelength than "electricity" electromagnetic waves in conductors (kilometers vs nano-meters) you can have a much higher throughput with light even if you use it to replace the carrier wires in electronics (which is what Intel is working on they want to keep electronic switching but make all carriers photonic). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity