- (Reuters) -- Israeli start-up Lenslet has developed a
processor that uses optics instead of silicon, enabling it to compute at
the speed of light, the company said.
-
-
- The company said its processor will enable new capabilities
in homeland security and military, multimedia and communications applications.
-
-
- "Optical processing is a strategic competitive advantage
for nations and companies," said Avner Halperin, vice president for
business development at Lenslet.
-
- "Processing at the speed of light, you can have
safer airports, autonomous military systems, high-definition multimedia
broadcast systems and advanced next-generation communications systems."
-
- An optical processor is a digital signal processor (DSP)
with an optical accelerator attached to it that enables it to perform functions
at very high speeds.
-
- "It is an acceleration of 20 years in the development
of digital hardware," Lenslet founder and Chief Executive Officer
Aviram Sariel told Reuters.
-
- The processor performs 8 trillion operations per second,
equivalent to a super-computer and 1,000 times faster than standard processors,
with 256 lasers performing computations at light speed.
-
- It is geared towards such applications as high resolution
radar, electronic warfare, luggage screening at airports, video compression,
weather forecasting and cellular base stations.
-
- Lenslet said its Enlight processor, unveiled at the MILCOM
exhibition in Boston this month, is the first commercially available optical
DSP.
-
- "Optics is the future of every information device,"
said Sariel.
-
- Jim Tully, vice president and chief of research for semiconductors
and emerging technologies at Gartner Inc, said most companies working with
optics focus on switching optical signals for telecommunications rather
than processing information optically.
-
- "I'm not aware of any company that has taken it
to the extent of processing optically," he said.
-
- Lenslet has raised $27.5 million so far from such investors
as Goldman Sachs, Walden VC, Germany's Star Ventures and Chicago-based
JKiB Capital.
-
- The company's prototype is fairly large and bulky but
when Lenslet begins to supply the processor in a few months it will be
shrunk to 15 x 15 cm with a height of 1.7 cm, roughly the size of a Palm
Pilot.
-
- "In five years we plan to shrink it to a single
chip," project manager Asaf Schlezinger said.
-
- Tully said one issue is whether this technology can be
produced in volume the way silicon chips are made.
-
- "Because semiconductor manufacturing technology
is well developed, you can produce millions at quite low cost," said
Tully, who is not familiar with Enlight.
-
- Lenslet said its processor will be competitive in price
with a multi DSP board.
-
- Sariel is negotiating joint projects with companies and/or
government agencies in the United States, Europe and Japan to produce the
processor for specific applications. It already has projects signed with
the Defense Ministry in Israel.
-
- "We don't rule out licensing our technology to others,"
Sariel said. "We are looking at a virtual production line where production
is done by others and we provide testing equipment."
-
- Tully said semiconductor companies are working on technology
that would use optical channels inside a chip to allow very high speed
communication from one part of a chip to another.
-
- "It's conceivable this technology could become mainstream
inside chips in 10 years time," Tully said.
-
- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/355181.html
|
