Network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. researchers will report on Tuesday that they have devised a way to dramatically increase the speed at which semiconductors can talk to each other.
By placing the chips edge to edge, directly touching, so data can flow freely, Sun has taken out the need for the tiny wires, pads and solder points that now connect chips on printed circuit boards that help make up computer systems, Sun said. The breakthrough could mean sending data among chips up to 100 times faster than current top transmission rates on traditional semiconductor-chip interconnects, Sun said. It would also solve one of the oldest challenges in the chip industry: the bottlenecks that crop up when chips -- which are getting ever faster -- are connected to one another. "It"s faster, cheaper, and uses less power," said John Gustafson, principal investigator for Sun"s high productivity computing systems.
Hit hard by downturn
Sun already holds seven patents on the new design and will seek to capitalize on them commercially, a Sun spokesman said. The New York Times on Monday first reported on the apparent breakthrough. Even though Sun has been harder hit than rivals International Business Machines Corp., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. in the technology downturn, it continues to invest aggressively in research and development.