[extropy-chat] NEWS: New Light-emitting Transistor Could Revolutionize Electronics Industry

[J Corbally]

Interesting this

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040106082752.htm


>CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Put the inventor of the light-emitting diode and the 
>maker of the world's fastest transistor together in a research laboratory 
>and what kinds of bright ideas might surface? One answer is a 
>light-emitting transistor that could revolutionize the electronics industry.
>Professors Nick Holonyak Jr. and Milton Feng at the University of Illinois 
>at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered a light-emitting transistor that could 
>make the transistor the fundamental element in optoelectronics as well as 
>in electronics. The scientists report their discovery in the Jan. 5 issue 
>of the journal Applied Physics Letters.

and

>Although the recombination process is the same as that which occurs in 
>light-emitting diodes, the photons in light-emitting transistors are 
>generated under much higher speed conditions. So far, the researchers have 
>demonstrated the modulation of light emission in phase with a base current 
>in transistors operating at a frequency of 1 megahertz. Much higher speeds 
>are considered certain.
>"At such speeds, optical interconnects could replace electrical wiring 
>between electronic components on a circuit board," Feng said. This work 
>could be the beginning of an era in which photons are directed around a 
>chip in much the same fashion as electrons have been maneuvered on 
>conventional chips.

It it can be marketed, it might reverse the trend to move to high speed 
serial busses in PCs back to multibit-wide datapaths, 'cept without the 
crosstalk nightmare.




James....