New circuit board to speed transmission

Two Korean computer science professors have developed a new kind of circuit board that can greatly decrease a computer’s data transmission times. Park Hyo-hoon, a professor of Information and Communications University, announced yesterday that his team and another led by Lee Yong-tak, a professor of Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, have developed an optical printed circuit board that uses copper wires and optical fiber wires together. Even though the processing times of computers’ central processing units have increased 50 times with the use of Pentium IV chips over Pentium I chips, users cannot tell the difference in everyday use. However, Mr. Park and Mr. Lee found a way to speed up transmission times so that users can call up big amounts of data in a short amount of time. “It takes only one second to transmit a one-hour video clip of high-definition television with the new technology,” Mr. Park said. “With existing technology, it takes tens of seconds.” Mr. Park said in their circuit board, data that need a high-speed transmission go through optical wires, and slow data go through copper wires to prevent delays. “We can apply the printed circuit board to computers immediately, but it won’t come into wide use until 2010 because of high costs,” he said. The professors’ results were published in the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, a U.S. academic journal, in March. The teams have applied for four patents in Korea. by Park Bang-joo