Energy Efficiency Breakthrough Could Reduce Data Centre Electricity Use
A new way to make computer chips use less energy could cut the electricity used in data centres.
Researchers at Oregon State University and Baylor University have found a way to make light chips used in data centres, and supercomputers use less energy. The results are essential because a data centre can use up to 50 times more power per square foot of floor space than a typical office building.
An organization's IT activities and equipment are located in a data centre. It also stores, processes, and shares data and applications. About 2% of all the power used in the U.S. goes to data centres. As the need for data has increased quickly, so has the number of data centres. There are more than 2,600 data centres in the U.S., home to companies like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google that make and use a lot of data.
Researchers John Conley, Wei-Che Hsu, Ben Kupp, Nabila Nujhat, and Alan Wang from OSU and Baylor developed a new, very energy-efficient way to fix light chips that break when the temperature changes. Conley said these chips "will be the backbone of high-speed communication in future data centres and supercomputers."
Instead of electrons, which are used in most computer chips, photons, tiny bits of light, are used in photonic chips. Photons, which move at the speed of light, make sending info quickly and with little energy use possible.
Until now, photonic chips needed a lot of energy to keep their temperature stable and performance good. On the other hand, the team led by Wang has shown that the power required to control temperature can be cut by more than a million times.
"We were able to make working prototypes that show temperature can be controlled by gate voltage, which means almost no electric current is needed," Conley said.
Wang said that "thermal heaters" are used in the photonics business to fine-tune the working wavelengths of high-speed electro-optical devices and improve how well they work. Each one of these thermal heaters uses a few milliwatts of energy.
Wang said, "That might not sound like much, but a typical LED lightbulb uses between 6 and 10 watts." "However, if you multiply these few milliwatts by millions of devices, they add up quickly. This approach faces problems as systems become more powerful as they scale up."
"Our way is much better for the environment," Conley said. "One day, it will make it possible for data centres to keep getting faster and stronger while using less energy."