I always thought SATA was a silly idea. Change from a parallel interface that
handles a whole byte at a time (or two or four bytes for various SCSI types) to
an interface that handles one bit at a time, requiring buffers to split up and
assemble bytes to pass onto the rest of the computer that does things in
parallel. To counter the physical bandwidth reduction, ramp up the speed those
single bits are moved around.
But it turns out there are practical limits to how fast single bits can be
shifted using electricity. Solution? Back to parallel, sort of. Put a whole
bunch of serial links side by side, and make it a scalable arrangement where 1
to 16 serial links can be used per device.
When will they give up on electricity for bit shifting and connect peripherals
with fiber optic links? Have the core light interface engine right close to the
CPU with a 256 bit (or wider) electrical bus. Fiber optic links embedded in the
motherboard lead to peripheral slots, which also have electrical connections
for a power bus. Have other light connectors for cables to storage and other
peripherals.
RAM could stay on a wide, parallel, electric bus. Reducing bus width and
cranking the speed for RAM has already proven to be underwhelming. RAMBUS ran
on a 16 bit bus at a higher clock to hit higher transfer speeds than 32bit wide
SDRAM. There was also a 32 bit wide version of RDRAM, an attempt to keep up
with later DDR-SDRAM versions. RDRAM had higher latency (much higher with
certain sorts of memory access patterns), higher cost to manufacture, and
higher power usage which produced more heat. Making light connected RAM modules
would make them more expensive due to the need to have light<>electricity
conversion systems on each module.
Perhaps individual LRAM chips could be designed with the conversion integrated
and cost no more to manufacture. Such integration may be required for other
peripherals to make a light bus worth doing.
On Saturday, October 28, 2017, 1:18:26 AM MDT, Chris Albertson
<[email protected]> wrote:
BTW these SSDs that have the same physical shape as a hard drive as
just a transitional technology. They are good for upgrades old
computers. But with new computers they eliminate the SATA-III
interface and connect the FLASH chip directly to the PCIe bus. SATA
has become a huge bottleneck
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