> Intel will introduce MXC, which they are calling "next generation > optical connector" with speeds up to 1.6 Terabits per second at Intel > Developer Forum (Sept. 10 to 12).
coverage of this is, as usual, very cacophonous. everyone seems to just repeat the "smaller than rj45 or sfp" and 1.6 Tb factoids, with a bit of hand-waving about previous Intel ejaculations on this general topic (lightpeak, silicon photonics, etc). > https://intel.activeevents.com/sf13/connect/search.ww#loadSearch-searchPhrase=MXC&searchType=session&tc=0&sortBy=abbreviationSort&p= no idea how 25 Gb is derived from 1.6 Tb... here's another rearrangement of the same ingredients: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/163982-intel-teases-1-6tbps-optical-interconnect-asks-us-to-forget-about-light-peak > Protocols supported include Infiniband, Ethernet and PCI-Express. but that sounds like marketing gibberish. I really don't think they've implemented full-function controllers for those protocols, just that since those protocols use bits for signalling, they could go over this media ;) > http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046676/intel-proposes-new-standard-to-light-up-data-transfers.html#tk.rss_all I found the Insight64 comments completely uninsightful - this is really only interesting if it moves quickly into systems, with cheapish cables and affordable switches. (actually, I wouldn't mind at all if Intel wanted to push a distributed switch model where each node has several ports and contains enough smarts to do simple routing. there's no reason this approach is incompatible with trendy stuff like SDN. if we take the conventional wisdom that large non-HPC clusters (web, bigdata) do TOR aggregation, then a nic-peer fabric would make a lot of sense...) regards, mark hahn. _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
