Tag: pentagon

Sun To Replace Computer Wires With Leaser beams To Connect Processor Chips

Sun is trying to replace the wires between computer chips with laser beams to eliminating a bottleneck. For decades, the semiconductor industry has broken silicon wafers into smaller chips to improve manufacturing yields. From the article:

Sun Microsystems is trying to do for computing what all the king’s horses and men failed to do for Humpty Dumpty. For decades, the semiconductor industry has broken silicon wafers into smaller chips to improve manufacturing yields.

Now Sun has found a way to reconnect the chips so they can communicate with each other at such high speeds that computer designers can build a new generation of computers that are faster, more energy-efficient and more compact.

The computer maker, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., plans to announce on Monday that it has received a $44 million contract from the Pentagon to explore the high-risk idea of replacing the wires between computer chips with laser beams.

I’m not an expert in electricity or electronics but on paper a laser should move as fast as energy. I really hope this will to improve speed :) Each chip would be able to communicate directly with every other chip via a beam of laser that could carry billions of bits of data a second.

US Spy Satellite Shoot Down Successfully

The US has successfully struck a disabled spy satellite with a missile fired from a warship in waters west of Hawaii, military officials say. So there is no danger to all of us (hydrazine exposure). As reported earlier the satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down. The Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia.) used a missile to shoot down the satellite:

Operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite – USA 193 – which went out of control shortly after it was launched in December 2006. Officials were worried its hydrazine fuel could do harm, but it is not yet known if the fuel tank was destroyed. On Tuesday, a US State Department spokesman stressed that the action was meant to protect people from the hazardous fuel and was not a weapons test. The US government has also denied claims that the main aim of the operation was to destroy secret components on USA 193. Officials say classified parts would be burned up in the atmosphere and, in any case, that would not be a reason for shooting down the satellite.

=> US missile hits ‘toxic satellite’