The PZ10 processor

Researchers from IBM and Georgia Institute of Technology designed and built a computer processor that broke the world speed record reaching an astonishing 500GHz speed, more than one hundred times faster than the fastest commonly available computer chip.

Most processors are made from silicon, but
in recent years several discoveries were made that revealed that there are other materials better suited for high processing speeds than silicon. There are a number of time critical systems, like collision-warning systems, where the silicon based processor is already being replaced by CPUs made from a layer of gallium arsenide, even if the materials needed are expensive and more difficult to produce. Because an extensive transition to another base material would be very costly and would take huge amount of time to complete, the computer hardware industry is searching for ways to improve existing silicon based CPUs. Such a way is to add small amount of germanium inside the silicon-based chips that are designed for mobile phones in order to make them more efficient.

Germanium allows chips to reach higher clock speeds and use less power and such processors can be fabricated using the existing production lines. Even so, reaching the 500GHz frequency was no easy feat, as the IBM researchers super cooled the processor prototype to -268.5 degrees Celsius, using liquid helium. The extremely low temperature, just above the minimum theoretical possible one known as "absolute zero", enabled the processor perform half a trillion calculations every second, which translates into a speed of 500GHz. "A decade ago we couldn't even envisage being able to run at these speeds," said Professor David Ahlgren of IBM.

The extreme speed of the prototype processor was greater than the conventional design even at room temperature where it reached 350 billion calculations per second and there are hopes that the mark can be pushed further. "We observe effects in these devices at cryogenic temperatures which potentially make them faster than simple theory would suggest," said Professor John Cressler of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was cited by the news site related to BBC.

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Original article can be found here.

Light powered Motor

Research team at Tokyo institute of technology has developed a motor which entirely runes on light, rather than photovoltaic cells which convert light to electricity this motor has special elastomer whose molecular structure expands or contracts when when light falls on it, this is how this motor can convert light energy directly into the mechanical energy.

Team was working on this project since 2003 when they found that plastic compound containing azobenze can expand in ultraviolet light and regain its original shape in normal visible light since then they had improved very much. They performed the test by rotating a pair of wheels measuring 3 millimeters and 10 millimeters in diameter looped with shape shifting plastic coated 0.08 millimeter belt, when ultraviolet light was shine on small wheels and visible light on small wheel they starts rotating with a top speed of 1 rpm.

The coated film measured 4 times elastic than human muscle, this thing is not very efficient but it can be improved to convert light energy into mechanical energy.

Brief History of Light Emitting Diode (LED)

LED lamp History

The phenomenon of solid state junctions producing light was discovered in the crystal detector era. In the 1960s commercial red LED’s became available, and by the 1970s these were in widespread use as indicators in a very wide range of equipment. These early LED’s had much too small an output to be useful as lighting. They replaced the previously widely used indicator types of filament lamps and neon. Compared to neon, indicator LED’s have longer lifetimes and run on lower voltage; compared to miniature filament lamps, indicator LED’s have much longer lifetimes, such that they do not require replacement, and consume less power. The lack of need for replacement also eliminates the need for bulb sockets and a user access port.

Commercial amber (yellow) and orange LED’s followed, and were used where differentiation of multiple LEDs was required. For many years LED’s came in infra-red, red, orange, yellow, and green. Blue, cyan, and violet LEDs finally appeared in the 1990s.

To produce a white SSL device, a blue LED was needed. In 1993, Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation came up with a blue LED using gallium nitride (GaN). With this invention, it was now possible to create white light by combining the light of separate LED’s (red, green, and blue), or by placing a blue LED in a package with an internal light converting phosphor. With the phosphor type, some of the blue output becomes either yellow or red and green with the result that the LED light emission appears white to the human eye.

In 2008, SSL technology advanced to the point that Sentry Equipment Corporation in Oconomowoc, Wis. was able to light its new factory almost entirely with LEDs, both interior and exterior. Although the initial cost was three times more than a traditional mixture of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, the extra cost will be repaid within two years from electricity savings, and the bulbs should not need replacement for 20 years.