- The TDK spin photo detector pushes data speeds ten times beyond today’s technology
- The bottlenecks of AI can disappear as TDK changes the GPU approach to data transfer
- Spin’s photo detector uses laser -induced magnetism for ultra -grared photoelectric conversion
The Japanese manufacturer TDK has affirmed that he has achieved great advance to solve one of the most pressing problems in artificial intelligence. No, not the performance of the GPU, but rather the transfer of data.
Its innovation, called Spin Photo detector, combines magnetic, optical and electronic technologies to move data at speeds up to ten times faster than they can offer existing semiconductor photodetector.
The TDK device reaches response speeds of only 20 peaks, or 20 billiones of second, using light at a wavelength of 800 nanometers.
TDK SPIN photo detector
“This data transfer is the largest bottleneck for AI instead of the performance of the semiconductor GPU,” said Hideaki Fukuzawa, senior manager of the company’s next -generation products development center.
“Since we can break many of the current bottlenecks, we believe that this technology will be a change of game for the AI industry and data centers.”
To achieve this, TDK redesigned its magnetic tunnel binding technology (MTJ), previously used in billions of hard disk drive heads.
The MTJ structure has only 200 width nanometers and integrates a single Cofeb -free layer that responds to laser pulses. It allows changing from parallel magnetic states to antiparallel with a 100% reliability in defined conditions.
Unlike semiconductors that depend on the generation of carriers and the limitations of the face to short wavelengths, rotation photo detectors use electron heating, allowing faster speeds and broader spectral coverage. The MTJ elements are also resistant to cosmic rays, which makes them ideal for aerospace applications.
“Spin’s photograph detector has a remarkable promise, both from a scientific and technological perspective,” said Arata Tsukamoto, a professor of electrical engineering at Nihon University who collaborated with TDK in validation.
The TDK device demonstrated an effective operation in a wide range of wavelengths, from 300 Nm to 1.6 µm. Its ultra -grared analog light detection capacity, energy efficiency and compact size open potential applications in AR/VR smart glasses, high -speed images and space systems. This development could also help address energy consumption problems in AI implementation.
Technology could serve markets where the rapid transfer of low latency data is crucial for AI workloads and graphics tasks.
TDK hopes to supply samples for March 2026 and points to mass production in five years. Thanks to the few required processing steps, he hopes to maintain a cost advantage and challenge the main chips manufacturers such as TSMC and NVIDIA, who are strongly investing in silicon photonics.
Via Financial Times
