Pushing Optics Closer to the CPU

There's something very important I forgot to tell you! Don't cross the streams… It would be bad… Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

—Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) on crossing proton streams, Ghostbusters

Well.... as we learned later in the movie, crossing streams is not always a bad thing.... As part of my work with the National Center for Optics and Photonics Education (OP-TEC: www.op-tec.org) I've been spending a lot of time learning new technical content while still staying current in the computing and communications field. I've been reading (and tweeting) recently about pushing optics closer and closer to the processor in computing systems. Here's more.

Last week, IBM announced the integration of a silicon photonic chip on the same package as a CPU. Why is this important? A couple of reasons -  if on-chip and chip-to-chip communications can use silicon as an optical medium, processing will be significantly faster, consume much less power and produce much less heat than the copper wires used today.

Extreme Tech published a nice diagram (below and based on the IBM announcement) last week showing the current state of silicon photonics technology. Notice the optical connection is currently at the board edge. With this IBM breakthrough, designers will begin to start moving the silicon photonics array closer and closer to the CPU, eventually building the optics into the CPU package itself.

The technology will initially be limited to the world of supercomputing but it will only be a matter of time before we see it trickle down to consumer level devices like PC's, tablets and smartphones. 

I love it when streams converge.

Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) - June 2012

I've written in the past about the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke, MA. The project is a collaboration of five of the state’s most research-intensive universities (Boston University, Harvard, MIT, UMass Amherst and Northeastern), state government and private industry — the most significant collaboration among government, industry and public and private universities in the history of the Commonwealth, and the first facility in the nation of its kind.

The facility is currently under construction and when completed will provide a world-class computational infrastructure, indispensible in the increasingly sensor and data-rich environments of modern science and engineering discovery. Today, virtually no major breakthrough, be it designing a new drug, developing new materials for clean energy or addressing climate change -- can take place without computation. In silico experimentation adds a powerful new dimension to knowledge discovery in all fields, alongside theory, physical experimentation and observation. With the increasingly integrated role of computation in fundamental and applied research, the MGHPCC represents a critical piece of infrastructure that will continue to fuel the world-leading innovation economy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through cooperative research, education and outreach activities.

On Wednesday afternoon a group of got to tour the construction site. Here's my picture set.



We all left with our jaws hanging. An incredible facility and some amazing people doing some things nobody else has ever done. Thanks especially to Claire and John.

New UMass President and Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center

I've written in the past about high performance computing in Western Massachusetts. 

I had the opportunity today to visit the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke, MA. A small group of us toured the Center with new University of Massachusetts President Robert Caret. 
As a UMass Amherst grad (Class of 1979) I have to admit it was pretty cool to be among the group to introduce Dr Caret to High Performance Computing in the Pioneer Valley. I'd like to thank MGHPCC Executive Director John Goodhue for the invite to this special event. Here's a few pics I snapped during the tour. 

Mass Green High Perf Computing Center, a set on Flickr.

Go UMass! Go MGHPCC!

Tropical storm Irene and The Connecticut River

This was my first week back from vacation and it was a busy one both inside and outside the office. Tropical Storm Irene came through last weekend and the flooding after really did some terrible damage and continues to impact people's lives from North Carolina to Maine..

Much of the rain that fell north of us from Irene eventually ended up flowing down the Connecticut River that separates Vermont and New Hampshire and splits Massachusetts and Connecticut. I drive by the Holyoke Dam every day going to and returning from work and took a few minutes to shoot some video on August 30, the day the river crested. I have never seen the river this high and this powerful. This was shot on the bridge connecting Holyoke and South Hadley Falls.



I could not believe the debris along with the color of the water.

Paper City Goes Green High Performance Computing - Holyoke, MA

I've been swamped with proposal work - the end of this week is a a major National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education submission deadline - and have not had a chance to write about the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center groundbreaking in Holyoke, MA held on October 5.

I've written about this project in the past - the idea was launched over a year ago by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts, Harvard University, Boston University, and Northeastern University. Each school kicked in $10 million and Massachusetts kicked in $25 million from a state fund that provides money to improve roads and other public works to support economic development. At the groundbreaking both Cisco and EMC announced $2.5 million contributions to the project for a total of $80 million committed.

I've been fortunate to have been involved with the planning process (on a technician / workforce / education / economic development level) and it's been interesting to watch the process and progress of the center. Some said it would never happen but - the ground was broken a couple of weeks ago so...... it's happening!

The center has the potential to turn around the first industrially designed city in the U.S. Holyoke was built around a series of man-made canals extending from the Connecticut River that were designed to provide water power to run paper mills. Holyoke once had so many paper mills it's nickname was (and still is) "Paper City". Most of those mills shut down years ago but now - new life for an old New England mill town.

Governor Deval Patrick missed the ground breaking because he was out on Cape Cod, attending the funeral of PFC Clinton E. Springer II who had died in Kabul, Afghanistan on September 24.

The Governor did come to Holyoke after the funeral though and got the chance to attend a Town Meeting following the groundbreaking. We had John Reynolds there with his camera and he got some great video of the Holyoke Mayor Elaine A. Pluta and Governor Patrick.

I don't think I've ever been this excited about a technical project - computers, networks, high-performance research including microbiology, genetics, chemistry, physics..... all performed in a green environmentally friendly way. The economic development potential and the kinds of companies and people the center will attract are potentially huge. It will be very interesting to watch. Pretty cool stuff!

To see more pictures, here's a link to my October 5 event Flickr photo set.