The New Look of IEEE Spectrum

We've redesigned the whole site to make it easier to find what you're looking for

1 min read

As you've likely noticed by now, IEEE Spectrum has a new look. But the differences are more than cosmetic; we've also overhauled the content management system, which will make it easier for us to provide dynamic content throughout the site.

We've also tried to make it easier to discover new stories no matter where you are on the site. Let's say you're reading an article about whether it makes sense to send humans back to the moon. To the right of the article, you have access to the most popular content on the site that week, a few stories handpicked by our editors, and additional related content. We're even working on automatically linking to related content in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library (there are still some kinks, but we'll get it straightened out soon).

Which reminds me: please be patient as we continue to improve and fix glitches (those of you using Internet Explorer 6, I apologize for the layout problems plaguing that browser).

In the meantime, take a look around and explore the site. There are lots of changes.

We'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave your impressions and comments in the form below.

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Two Startups Are Bringing Fiber to the Processor

Avicena’s blue microLEDs are the dark horse in a race with Ayar Labs’ laser-based system

5 min read
Diffuse blue light shines from a patterned surface through a ring. A blue cable leads away from it.

Avicena’s microLED chiplets could one day link all the CPUs in a computer cluster together.

Avicena

If a CPU in Seoul sends a byte of data to a processor in Prague, the information covers most of the distance as light, zipping along with no resistance. But put both those processors on the same motherboard, and they’ll need to communicate over energy-sapping copper, which slow the communication speeds possible within computers. Two Silicon Valley startups, Avicena and Ayar Labs, are doing something about that longstanding limit. If they succeed in their attempts to finally bring optical fiber all the way to the processor, it might not just accelerate computing—it might also remake it.

Both companies are developing fiber-connected chiplets, small chips meant to share a high-bandwidth connection with CPUs and other data-hungry silicon in a shared package. They are each ramping up production in 2023, though it may be a couple of years before we see a computer on the market with either product.

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