Scientists at Northrop Grumman have created an integrated circuit (IC) that can run at 0.67 terahertz, or 0.67 trillion cycles per second, more than doubling the frequency of the fastest known IC in the world, the company announced yesterday.
Northrop Grumman’s Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) was developed as part of DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program, which aims to introduce the next generation of high-performance electronics that push performance levels above the 1 terahertz center frequency range. Such electronics should lead to better communications technologies, sub-millimeter wave sensors, and terahertz imaging systems that blow current technologies out of the water.
Obviously, 0.67 terahertz doesn’t quite reach DARPA’s goals, which as always are quite ambitious. But TMIC amplifiers could still have an appreciable impact on technologies ranging from communications to radar to explosives detection. And naturally these advances should trickle down to benefit those of us who don’t have security clearance as well.
Source: Northrop Grumman.
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