How can these be compared to existing chips? Photonic, yes, but how fast can they switch and make calculations? What does a photonic transistor even look like / work?
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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here's an article, basically they're orders of magnitude faster and more energy efficient, photonic chips have the potential to make silicon look like vacuum tubes https://singularityhub.com/2021/11/01/researchers-created-an-optical-switch-thats-up-to-1000-times-faster-than-silicon-transistors/
Thanks for the article. I think the operating word here is "can". They can be much faster than existing transistors. The article seems to indicate it isn't there yet, so by extension this recent development might not be.
But there is hope!
Right, the first generations likely won't have a huge advantage over silicon, but it's the growth potential that's key. We're basically hitting the limits of what you can do on the current substrate. There's really nowhere left to go past 1nm chips.