500GHz Processor

Tuesday, Jun. 20 2006 | Author: Dave

Think being able to overclock your computer to 5GHz would be cool? What about 500GHz?

A recent story on Cnet News reports that researchers at IBM and Georgia Tech have pushed a chip to run at the incredible speed of 500GHz, a new record. There is one slight catch though, as researchers had to bring the temperature down to negative 451 degrees Fahrenheit for it to work.

At room temperature, the IBM-Georgia Tech chip operates at 350GHz, or 350 billion cycles per second. That’s far faster than standard PC processors today, which range from 3.8GHz to 1.8GHz. But SiGe chips can gain additional performance in colder temperatures.

To that end, IBM and Georgia Tech scientists turned down the temperature and cryogenically froze the chip at minus 451 F. It’s about as cold as things get. An extremely cold temperature like that is found naturally only in outer space, but can be artificially achieved on Earth using ultracold materials such as liquid helium. Absolute zero comes at minus 459 F.

Even its default speed of 350GHz would be nice to use…

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8 Responses for "500GHz Processor"

christina

June 20th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
1

They may use a laser technique to interferr with molecular movement to cool it down.
I wonder why the cold temperature causes more cycles per second.
but i’d definitely love even a 350Ghz processor!
Marco (Griffith) Jardim

June 21st, 2006 at 5:26 am
2

Wow… with that processor we might actually be able to play Doom 3!
Jonathan M. Hollin

June 21st, 2006 at 7:59 am
3

My seti@home cluster could really use a few of them! ;-)
Cthulu

June 21st, 2006 at 10:18 am
4

I believe that the cooler temperatures allow for more power to be pumped through the chip. It’s basically the same with overclocking current PC based chips – if you can cool them off, you can run them faster. When things start heating up, electrons start doing strange things – like not staying in the circuit. So it’s no surprise really that they were able to get faster speeds from a cooler chip; they just overclocked it. (I believe that the cooler temperatures allow for more power to be pumped through the chip. It’s basically the same with overclocking current PC based chips – if you can cool them off, you can run them faster. When things start heating up, electrons start doing strange things – like not staying in the circuit. So it’s no surprise really that they were able to get faster speeds from a cooler chip; they just overclocked it. (I believe that the cooler temperatures allow for more power to be pumped through the chip. It’s basically the same with overclocking current PC based chips – if you can cool them off, you can run them faster. When things start heating up, electrons start doing strange things – like not staying in the circuit. So it’s no surprise really that they were able to get faster speeds from a cooler chip; they just overclocked it. (I believe that the cooler temperatures allow for more power to be pumped through the chip. It’s basically the same with overclocking current PC based chips – if you can cool them off, you can run them faster. When things start heating up, electrons start doing strange things – like not staying in the circuit. So it’s no surprise really that they were able to get faster speeds from a cooler chip; they just overclocked it. (<-put simply)
Vincent

June 21st, 2006 at 6:09 pm
5

Where do I sign up to get one?
A. Nonymous

June 23rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm
6

Would be ‘really cool’, if it were really like that… …unfortunately, it’s not.

See:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060622-7117.html
Sanaullah

July 11th, 2006 at 5:59 am
7

The procesor is really a cool product and i would like to purchase it as soon as possible but what about its heating is overclocking would make the chip so heat up
Alfred

December 18th, 2006 at 7:36 am
8

Hmm… sweet! [*../nice_site2.txt*]
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