Virtually every device you use from the one you are using to read this to the pocket calculator growing dust in the back of your desk relies on the same basic technology: transistor circuits containing transistors that communicate with each other using electrons.We have come a very long way since the room-sized computers of the 1950s,b ut as computing gets smaller, faster and more complicated,w e get closer to hitting a wall.There’s a physical limit to how powerful traditional computers can get.That’s why the scientist is turning to completely new forms of technology for future computers.Princeton University researchers have developed the world’s first integrated silicon photonic neuromorphic chip, which contains 49 circular nods etched into semiconductor silicon.The chip could complete a math equation than a typical central processing unit, a speed that would make it ideal for use in future neural networks.

How It Works

The network relies on a silicon chip, just like a conventional computer, but instead oft a transistor,it features 49 circular nodes that act like neurons.Each of these “neurons” circulates a specific wavelength of light, then has an effect on a laser, which completes the circuit when its light returns to the neuron.
As complicated as that sounds this should read clear as day: The researchers proved that the chip is capable of super-fast computing by demonstrating that it could crunch a mathematical differential equation 1960 times more quickly than a typical central processing unit, which uses electrons, says Futurism.That’s right: by swapping out conventional transistor for artificial neurons and comparatively sluggish electrons for light-speed photons, scientists created for light-speed photons, scientists created a computer that’s nearly 2,000 times faster than the ones we use today.The future than the ones we use today.The future is looking bright-and really, really fast.