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I wrote some unpublished fiction once about a super computer that used light as the interconnect fabric between nodes/CPUs, where each core could talk to any ot

I wrote some unpublished fiction once about a super computer that used light as the interconnect fabric between nodes/CPUs, where each core could talk to any other core with virtually no latency and high bandwidth. I guess it's never been used (widely) because it's easy enough to run copper.

solarkraft 7y ago
Could you elaborate on the work? Did you write about unexpected implications of this technology?
- RandomTisk 7y ago
  Nothing that visionary or even self aware, but imagine a giant sphere, sealed with an inside vacuum and also coated on the inside with IC's connected via copper for power and basic communication but each IC also had a nodule/transceiver that could communicate with every other IC via the light spectrum, because every IC had line of sight to the others, all submerged in liquid nitrogen or some other coolant. The premise was a giant campus like a school that users would be able to carry near-dumb terminals around, like smartphones with very little power but if they needed computational power all they had to do to tap into the sphere, by being in visible range of receptacles all around the campus both inside and out. And the sphere could borrow processing power from unused devices if they were available. So light was the practical connection for users, but also used inside the sphere.
zamadatix 7y ago
Copper is actually the faster way to interconnect electrical computers. https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/Copper-Faster-Than-Fiber-Brief.pdf https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/Copper-Faster-Than-Fi... For electrical computers connected via optics and vice versa there is also a latency cost to converting the signal types that makes doing so at <rack sized distances a painfully bad choice. Not to mention the cost & power associated with converting light to lasers and back. That being said any real world supercomputer bigger than 1 rack has a significant amount of optical interconnect as it's easier to get a coherent signal farther with optics at the same power.

solarkraft 7y ago

Could you elaborate on the work? Did you write about unexpected implications of this technology?

RandomTisk 7y ago
Nothing that visionary or even self aware, but imagine a giant sphere, sealed with an inside vacuum and also coated on the inside with IC's connected via copper for power and basic communication but each IC also had a nodule/transceiver that could communicate with every other IC via the light spectrum, because every IC had line of sight to the others, all submerged in liquid nitrogen or some other coolant. The premise was a giant campus like a school that users would be able to carry near-dumb terminals around, like smartphones with very little power but if they needed computational power all they had to do to tap into the sphere, by being in visible range of receptacles all around the campus both inside and out. And the sphere could borrow processing power from unused devices if they were available. So light was the practical connection for users, but also used inside the sphere.

zamadatix 7y ago

Copper is actually the faster way to interconnect electrical computers. https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/Copper-Faster-Than-Fiber-Brief.pdf https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/Copper-Faster-Than-Fi... For electrical computers connected via optics and vice versa there is also a latency cost to converting the signal types that makes doing so at <rack sized distances a painfully bad choice. Not to mention the cost & power associated with converting light to lasers and back. That being said any real world supercomputer bigger than 1 rack has a significant amount of optical interconnect as it's easier to get a coherent signal farther with optics at the same power.