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Intel Technology

Intel Announces Laser Breakthrough 185

Posted by samzenpus from the speed-of-light dept.
AdmiralWeirdbeard writes "Intel has just announced a breakthrough in laser technology allowing a continuous laser wave on a silicon chip. Apparently they devised a method to sap the interfering field of electrons previously generated in silicon by the lasers. Intel says that hardware exploiting the advance might begin appearing at the end of the decade."
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Intel Announces Laser Breakthrough More

Intel Announces Laser Breakthrough

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  • Correct Units? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by FalconZero ( 607567 ) *
    The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?
    That 48mm seems awfully big (~38,000 times bigger than the other dimensions). IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it, or maybe its not linear.
    If it is 48mm though, thats one hell of a long die, unless Intel are going to start making REALLY BIG chips.

    • Re:Correct Units? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:11PM (#11694861)
      The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?

      No, those units look right. If you really read the first article, then you would have seen the picture of the die.
      • I have to give him some credit. I ignored the picture as a stock photo until I read that ~50mm part, and I thought, "Ok, that's why the stock photo looks so strange, tt's a light waveguide! Still, it's a great advance. You'd really only need one laser for a huge range of really cool computer chips.

    • Re:Correct Units? (Score:5, Informative)

      by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:20PM (#11694947) Journal
      The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?

      Yes. The Nature article the guys published (20 Jan, vol 433, p292) on this says "4.8 cm".

      IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it, or maybe its not linear.

      Yes, of course they're going to develop this further. This is the first time they've achived continous-wave laser gain in silicon, obviously the next step is to increase it.
      (A smaller cavity requires larger gain)

      No it's not linear, the cavity is S-shaped.
    • They had another bit wrong too. Today's long haul transport lasers go up to 40Gig. Not too cheap either. A 40G transponder from Ciena will run you $75,000

    • Re:Correct Units? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by pclminion ( 145572 )
      That 48mm seems awfully big

      It has to be, for efficiency purposes.

      The reason laser light is coherent is because it travels an enormous distance before being emitted. This gives the individuals waves time to become coherent. Normally, this "enormous distance" is implemented by having the light bounce back and forth between two mirrors a large number of times. However, every time the light hits a mirror you lose a bit of energy. So, if the cavity is short, you must have a higher gain in order to get the r

      • Re:Correct Units? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 )
        The reason laser light is coherent is because it travels an enormous distance before being emitted. This gives the individuals waves time to become coherent.

        The laser is coherent because the emitted photons are in phase.
        • The laser is coherent because the emitted photons are in phase.

          Wrong. Here is a good explanation [eskimo.com] in lay terms. You can find much more detailed explanations with a bit of digging.

          • Re:Correct Units? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Hal-9001 ( 43188 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @03:27AM (#11697412) Homepage Journal
            Wrong. Here is a good explanation [eskimo.com] in lay terms. You can find much more detailed explanations with a bit of digging.
            That site is totally wrong about the origin of coherence in laser light. I sent the following to the site maintainer:
            RE: LASERS EMIT COHERENT LIGHT, BUT NOT BECAUSE THE ATOMS EMIT IN-PHASE LIGHT WAVES


            I ran across your site, and I would like to point out that your explanation for the coherence of laser light is incorrect. Coherence and phase are intrinsically-related. Measurements of the temporal or spatial coherence of light are in fact measurements of the relative phase of two different samples of a light wave. The fact that stimulated-emission results in an emitted photon that is exactly in-phase with the incident photon does explain spatial coherence. This is because the laser beam originates as a single (or relatively few) spontaneously-emitted photon(s). That photon is amplified by the stimulated-emission process to form the laser beam. Because the path of the initial photon is generally not along the optical axis of the laser cavity, and because it can be coherently scattered as it propagates through the gain medium, it traverses the gain medium along many paths. Thus the entire laser beam inherits its phase from the initial spontaneously-emitted photon, and is therefore fully spatially-coherent. Even if we consider the laser beam to originate from several spontaneously-emitted photons, the result is that beam is the superposition of several fully spatially-coherent beams, which can be shown to be a fully spatially-coherent beam.

            You are correct that starlight becomes more spatially-coherent by propagating long distances, but that cannot the mechanism for the spatial-coherence of a laser, as I will explain with a fairly simple counter-example. With Q-switching, it is trivial to switch a laser on and off within 10 nanoseconds, in which time light travels about 3 meters in vacuum. Yet the laser pulse can be measured to be as or more coherent than starlight, even though its propagation distance is on the order of meters rather than light years.

            You are correct that the pure color (monochromaticity) of laser light is due to the mirrors (which form a Fabry-Perot or some other resonant cavity), but I would argue that the explanation for the pure color for laser light is at a less advanced level (third-year physics undergraduate) than the explation for its coherence. Coherence is an advanced-undergraduate to graduate-level topic, as a proper analysis of coherence requires Fourier transforms, and the coherence of stimulated emission is a topic in quantum electrodynamics. The most readable but rigorous treatment of optical coherence that I am aware of is _Statistical Optics_ by Joseph Goodman, but even that is written at the advanced-undergraduate to graduate level.
            • Hey, did you ever hear back from that guy? He makes such a big deal out of bad science it would be ridiculous if he failed to even respond to you.

              Thanks for correcting both him and me. I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read online, but I thought at least this site would be safe since a lot of his other explanations are right on...

      • Re:Correct Units? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Hal-9001 ( 43188 )

        The reason laser light is coherent is because it travels an enormous distance before being emitted. This gives the individuals waves time to become coherent.

        This explanation for why laser light is coherent is WRONG. The coherence properties of laser light are due to the properties of the stimulated emission process, and therefore localized in time and space to the emission event.

        The best explanation I've seen for the coherence of stimulated emission is "Rereading Einstein on Radiation" by Daniel Kleppne

        • Thus the emitted photon must be exactly in-phase with the incident photon, and is therefore fully coherent with the incident photon.

          This is true, but does not explain the mass coherence of laser light. It cannot explain why only a single phase becomes prevalent. Remember the principle of superposition -- if laser action depended solely on the in-phase emission of radiation, that would not preclude the simultaneous existence of a great number of different phases. The number of phases would only be limited

          • Re:Correct Units? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Hal-9001 ( 43188 )
            I rebut that link in this reply [slashdot.org] to one of your other comments. The feedback due to the mirrors does contribute to the spatial coherence of the beam, but ultimately it depends on the fact that the stimulated emission process is temporally-coherent (in-phase). A Q-switched laser is a simple counterexample (at least to an optical physicist). Another simple counterexample that I neglected to mention in that other post is this. According to your theory, if I remove the laser medium from the laser and shine l

    • Re:Correct Units? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The CHIP is 16mmx16mm, the waveguide built into the chip is "folded" to fit 1.5x1.55x48000 micrometers.

      Bet it you look at a road map of any city, you will find that the sum of the length of all the lines on the page is greater then the any of lengths of the edges of the map, too.

      But I have a more fundamental question, one which I have not been able to determine in spite of having read the cited articles (Yes, we A.C.s CAN read the fine articles on occasion):

      WHAT IS THE WAVELENGTH OF THE OUTPUT???????????
    • Has it got the units right on that one? ... IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it,

      Does it have gotten the grammer right on this one? One did has gotten the right and was well goodlyness that was be well.
  • > Intel has just announced a breakthrough in laser technology
    > allowing a continuous laser wave on a silicon chip. Apparently
    > they devised a method to sap the interfering field of electrons
    > previously generated in silicon by the lasers.

    You know, I have one simple request, and that is to have silicon chips with frickin' laser beams on 'em. Now, evidently, my electronically sapped colleague informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw

  • Silicon: is there anything it can't do? Seriously, it'll be interesting to see how this impacts optical storage, not to mention all the other places lasers are used.

  • Raman (Score:3, Funny)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) <bittercode@gmail> on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:09PM (#11694841) Homepage Journal
    I knew early on in college Raman would be the ultimate solution to many problems. I wasn't thinking about lasers at the time but I'm not surprised. Those scrumptious noodles. So cheap, so easy to prepare.

    • Re:Raman (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by ikkonoishi ( 674762 )
      I once ate pretty much only ramen for a month when I was seven.

      It nearly destroyed my kidneys.

      Now I can't eat it. I miss it so much.

      The creamy chicken type was my favorite.
  • That this will lead to optical computing, but after reading the BBC [bbc.co.uk] article its clear that they have it in mind to use this for optical switches in the telecomunications industry. If someone smart could come up with a silicon based optical NAND gate, we would all be happy campers.

  • Am I the only one that doesn't get it? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PartyBoy!911 ( 611650 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:12PM (#11694870)
    Ok it sounds cool... but what is the intended purpose of this breakthrough?

    • Re:Am I the only one that doesn't get it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thpr ( 786837 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:29PM (#11695014)
      There are probably two major uses. The first is in an optical switch. Traditionally, switches were OEO (optical-electrical-optical) until the all-optical craze hit in 2000. OOO (all optical) are (in theory) able to switch the light faster, which reduces latency, power usage, and lots of other things in the optical core of the network. However, if you eliminate the separate optics devices and can run the optics directly onto the semiconductor, OEO may be a lot more competitive (meaning cheaper). Go search LightReading [lightreading.com] for "OEO" or "OOO" to follow that debate (of whether there is benefit to all-optical and the current state of the art. [Infinera is a rather interesting startup driving OEO into the future to compete with OOO]

      The second major use would be chip-to-chip interconnect. However, this becomes a challenge, as you try to keep a ribbon of fiber-optics (think 200-2000 strands) perfectly lined up with the lasers on the die. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is one of the hurdles to face before it could be used that way in mass-produced systems like a PC. The theory goes that at about 1 foot per second, electrical propagation between chips is causing us lots of headaches. HyperTransport and other technologies make some advances to get around the plain limits, but there are still major problems with sending high-speed signals on circuit boards. Even if this can't help speed up absolute memory access time, it could help to improve throughput between memory and the processor, helping to avoid some of the single-threaded bottlenecks that led IBM and its partners to develop Cell [slashdot.org]

    • Imagine a time where anyone who tries to violate the DMCA is shot in the eye with a laser beam.

      That would stop those pesky pirates.

  • Expensive? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BeerCat ( 685972 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:15PM (#11694908) Homepage
    From TFA: The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has created a chip containing eight continuous Raman lasers by using fairly standard silicon processes rather than the somewhat expensive materials and processes required for making lasers today.

    OK, so I'm probably missing some major point here, but, define "expensive" for making lasers, given that there is a laser in every cheap £20 CD player, cheap £30 DVD player, cheap £5 laser pointer... Can't be that expensive, surely?
    • OK, so I'm probably missing some major point here, but, define "expensive" for making lasers, given that there is a laser in every cheap £20 CD player, cheap £30 DVD player, cheap £5 laser pointer... Can't be that expensive, surely?

      Keep in mind they say may be in use in about ten years which means you could have some major upheavals in technology in the interim and lots of lasers would be in demand on one board or card.

    • If with laser technology A it costs me 4 cents to produce some laser, and with laser technology B it costs me 6 cents, then technology B is expensive since I'm losing 2 cents on each unit.

    • Re:Expensive? (Score:5, Informative)

      by thpr ( 786837 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:41PM (#11695093)
      define "expensive" for making lasers

      Keep in mind that the lasers you are working with are not very precise (the CD player, DVD player), or even only have to be coherent (the laser pointer) and not pulsing. Even with the encoding, the DVD is only transmitting a few Mb/s of information as it encounters pits and lands on a CD/DVD. (4.7GB/2 hours = ~6Mb/s)

      The long-haul optical systems and optical switches are transmitting over multi-kilometer fiber optic cable that is transmitting at Gb/s rates. That requires a MUCH better laser, in terms of power, coherency and switching speed. I actually don't know what the lasers cost, but some of the receivers can be in the hundreds for a single receiver at the very high end. The optical systems themselves are rather expensive, being thousands of dollars for a single mid-range board that has a pair of optical receiver/transmitters (2 ports).

      • I don't think DVD reading lasers even need to pulse. The optical reciever needs to be able to see pulses based on how the light reflects back, but the laser itself just needs to be on, with a lens properly focused.

        I'm not sure what long haul optical systems cost, but fiber optic 1000bFX cards seem to cost at least twice that of the 1000bTX version.

    • Re:Expensive? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by oliverthered ( 187439 )
      Don't think, know.
      google anyone...? [thorlabs.com]

      ECL1525-PM
      MicroECL, Wide Tunable Laser Module
      Price: $14,000.00
      TL1300-B
      Intun Tunable Laser, 1300nm
      Price: $20,000.00
      HGR020
      HeNe Laser, 543nm, 2.0mW, Random
      Price: $1,900.00
      HRP005S
      HeNe Laser, 633nm, 0.5mW, Polarized (Self-Contained)
      Price: $370.00
      HRP008
      HeNe Laser, 633nm, 0.8mW, Polarized
      Price: $780.00
      HRP350-EC
      HeNe Laser, 633nm, 35mW, Polarized, 230V
      Price: $6,300.00
      DL5147-042
      655nm, 35mW Sanyo Laser Diode
      Price: $44.38
      HL6335G
      635nm, 5mW Hitachi Laser Diode
      Price: $57.14
      HL6344G
      635n

    • Re:Expensive? (Score:2, Informative)

      by mehitabel ( 771020 )
      in the laser lab where I work:

      solid state diode laser, 5W at 532nm: $40,000
      YLF laser, 20W at 532nm: $40,000
      Titanium doped sapphire crystal: $1000
      optics to make 400mW ultrafast laser: $10,000+

      cost of buying comparable kit from KML: priceless!
      no, actually $100-300k

      not that these lasers are exactly general use.
      I'm just pointing out that lasers and materials can be very expensive.

  • End of the Decade? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bingo Foo ( 179380 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:21PM (#11694958)
    Intel says that hardware exploiting the advance might begin appearing at the end of the decade.

    Which one?

  • What in the... (Score:5, Funny)

    by d474 ( 695126 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:22PM (#11694971)
    From TFA:
    1. Rong's chip produces laser light when it is 'pumped' with another laser.

    I'm sorry, but that is just Rong...

  • Catch 22 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by karvind ( 833059 )
    From the nature [nature.com] article: Rong's chip produces laser light when it is 'pumped' with another laser.

    This is old stuff (see bottom note on the article, result was published in Oct 2004). Intel showed they can lase silicon with another laser. So how am I going to find another laser to pump this one ?

    Silicon is indirect bandgap semiconductor. There is no easy way to make lasers out of it unless you introduce some traps to facilitate optical transistions. Can anyone explain how does it work ? -a

    • Re:Catch 22 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anztac ( 322182 ) <theAnztac&hotmail,com> on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:31PM (#11695025)
      Yeah, they mention in the news.com article that silicon is a poor producer of light, what it is good at though is amplifying it via the Ramen effect.

      A Raman laser, in some ways, is ideally suited for silicon. The Raman Effect, discovered in 1928 by Nobel laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, roughly works as follows: Light hits a substance, causing the atoms in the substance to vibrate. The collision causes some of the photons to gain or lose energy, resulting in a secondary light of a different wavelength. A Raman laser essentially involves taking this secondary light and then amplifying it (by reflecting it and pumping energy into the system) to emit a functional beam. Because of its crystalline structure, silicon atoms readily vibrate when hit with light. The Raman Effect, in fact, is 10,000 times stronger in silicon than standard glass, which should make it far easier to amplify.

  • Do you smell that? (Score:4, Funny)

    by eomnimedia ( 444806 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:25PM (#11694985)
    "...continuous laser wave..."

    Aw, nuts. And I just bought my new Continuous Bacon Wave [asontv.com] . <sigh>There's always an upgrade.</sigh>

  • Power supply... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:25PM (#11694988)
    The article didn't mention this, or I didn't see it, but wouldn't using lasers instead of wires really use a lot of power? Epecially when you start using a lot of them. But then again, maybe these are really low powered lasers and don't take much power at all. Anyone have any ideas or know anything about wires vs lasers?
    • Maybe they do right now, but with today's nanotrends, expect nanoscopic lasers being used to transfer information in a chip.

      I give it about 20 years. Maybe in 25 we'll start seeing fully-functional optical microprocessors. But by that time there will be already cold microprocessors using nanotube-based transistors, and running with perhaps an AA battery or something.
    • it takes less power to send a photonic signal than an electronic signal. so the answer to your question is... NO!!!

    • I imagine the initial ENIAC-style transistor computers were power monsters too. So yes, they likely do, but technology only gets better with time. And in fact, depending how it's implemented, it may actually take a little LESS power once it reaches a production-quality level.


    • I'm wondering if the new chips will be radiation proof.

  • implement (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    just curious, how would you implement this technology on an x86 board?

  • Artistic turn... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RM6f9 ( 825298 ) <rwmurker@yahoo.com> on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:33PM (#11695038) Homepage Journal
    Open up gaps between the secondary light source and receptors such that they criss-cross the inside of your desktop's case... web of light, home-brewed koyanisqatsi (sp?) sequel - I wouldn't mind having a larger box if it would work the way I'm seeing/imagining it...
    Whaddaya know? Per the article, lasers really *are* cool! (cooler than wires anyway).

  • Optoelectronics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:35PM (#11695055)
    Hybrid optical-electronic chips are ussed mainly in highspeed net hardware. $$$ is the reason you haven't seen them in your desktop. I am fascinated by it more than quantum because it seems far off.

    optoelectronics defined by Intel article. [intel.com]

    More info. Just google Optoelectronics.

  • Sweet! (Score:4, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:37PM (#11695065) Journal
    This and Plastics clear the way for the Superconductor advance! I'll have those pesky French beaten in no time!

    Now I just need to steal Conscription from the Aztecs...

  • CowbyNeal posted it Jan 7th here [slashdot.org].
    • The advance in technology being announced here is Intel's solution to the Two Photon Absorption problem. This allowed the team of scientists referenced in the story you cite to take the pulsing silicon laser they announced then, and make it a continuous wave laser, which is being announced now.

      But I should have linked the previous story as well... my bad.

  • But it's not a laser (Score:3, Informative)

    by Biff Stu ( 654099 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @08:49PM (#11695166)
    It's based on Raman shifting. It's a nice way of getting longer wavelength light from shorter wavelength light, but you still need a pricey(non-silicon) laser to make it work. Furthermore, because the Raman process has limited efficiency, you end up loosing much of the efficiency of a conventional (non-silicon) diode laser.

    It's only interesting because it can be electronically swiched on and off, so it represents a nice way of getting modulated light into a silicon waveguide. On the other hand, there are modulators with much better efficiency. So it's a cheap but inefficient modulator, which is also a wavelength converter.

    • but it is a laser. so try reading!!!!

      you think nature would publish something about a laser that is not really a laser?

      • Re:But it's not a laser (Score:4, Informative)

        by Biff Stu ( 654099 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @10:39PM (#11696021)
        Try learning physics.

        Laser: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

        The stimulated Raman effect is fundamentally different from stimulated emission. You can't get stimulated emission from Si because it is an indirect bandgap semiconductor. However, it is true that both processes can generate coherent beams of light, and people typically refer to devices that generate coherent light as laser sources, hence the term "Raman Laser".

        However, my point is that this device can't convert non-optical energy into optical energy. Furthermore, since it's a non-linear optical process, you can only get the necessary intinsity to drive this process from a coherent source. Therefore you must have an actual laser to start this process. This is something that they state in the articles. However, in the c/net article, the marketing hype starts to take over. They state, "The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has created a chip containing eight continuous Raman lasers by using fairly standard silicon processes rather than the somewhat expensive materials and processes required for making lasers today." Implying that this gets us away needing old-fashoned expensive lasers. It doesn't.

        Yes, they are nice, small coherent light sources that can be easily modulated and integrated into Si, but they aren't lasers, and the efficiency is a problem.

        Let's say you want to start making integrated optical circuits. If you want a chip with 100 switches, you must pump each switch with 300 mW. (Well maybe you could cut back to 100 mW, but the efficiency of these things is non-linear, and there will be a threshold power at which they don't work.) Therefore, a device with just 100 switches would require 10 to 30 watts of coherent optical power to drive it. Then you need to worry about the wall-plug efficiency of your pump laser (or lasers) and the bulk of the pump laser.

        It's interesting, and it did deserve an article in Nature. However, there's a lot of corporate marketing hype behind all the buzz in the linked articles, and when marketing hype and science mix I get annoyed.

        • used with GaAs lasers? (Score:3, Informative)

          by bodrell ( 665409 )

          Furthermore, since it's a non-linear optical process, you can only get the necessary intinsity to drive this process from a coherent source. Therefore you must have an actual laser to start this process. This is something that they state in the articles.

          What do you mean by "actual laser?" Are semiconductor lasers not coherent sources? Or are they not bright enough? It did say you need another laser . . . I think maybe I'm not fully understanding what they're talking about:

          Using the Raman effect, th

        • However, my point is that this device can't convert non-optical energy into optical energy. Furthermore, since it's a non-linear optical process, you can only get the necessary intinsity to drive this process from a coherent source. Therefore you must have an actual laser to start this process.

          So I guess all those argon-pumped Ti:sapphire oscillators and diode-pumped Nd:YAG oscillators aren't real lasers either. The radiative mechanism for this device is different than for a direct-bandgap semiconductor

  • what the big deal is about is basically that intels raman laser represents another step towards having cheap electron to photon interconnects (and cheap fiber optic amps, although funnily the said the efficiency was only around 5%, but i can still see its significance). i drool at the thought of having my CPU connected to my RAM via an optical bus!(and cheaply too i must add, as this is currently possible, but would be very costly)...or maybe even optical SATA, sweeet!

  • Geordi Will Be Happy (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "method to sap the interfering field of electrons previously generated in silicon by the lasers"

    Yes, but will the warp-core injector stay online until the tachyon pulse is finished retuning the bullshittean field modulation?

  • Exploitation (Score:3, Funny)

    by bytesmythe ( 58644 ) <bytesmytheNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday February 16, 2005 @09:07PM (#11695330)
    Intel says that hardware exploiting the advance might begin appearing at the end of the decade.

    And software exploiting said hardware will appear about 15 minutes later...
  • This news raised Intel's market cap by 74million dollars today(up 2.5 points). That means that either the market vales this new technology at 74million (about 10% of the company) OR we have a lot of stupid investors that overvalue stock because they think news like this is going to make them rich. I'm not an expert, but I am studying finance in college and I don't think people are being responsible when I see things like this. I believe that it will be the people with brains and balls that short this soc
    • Intel is INTC - according to yahoo finance they were down $0.33 (1.35%) today. With a market cap of ~$150B, this puts them down over $2 billion. If you compare Intel's stock price history with the S&P 500, or IBM, or MS, or ... you will see that they all (mostly) move in the same direction at the same time. Welcome to the notion of mutual funds. Intel moving 2.5 points (10%!) in one day isn't going to happen any time soon.
      • you will see that they all (mostly) move in the same direction at the same time. Welcome to the notion of mutual funds.

        Actually, its called Beta and is used to measure risk. A beta of 1.0 would mean a stock is just as volatile as the S&P 500, though you could chose any other index as a base if you wanted to and recompute beta against that.

        As for the original parent, the post was clearly a troll aimed at private social security accounts.
      • Your correct, the stock I looked up was INTL. I should have known that 700million was a very small market cap for Intel. Sorry for the confusion.

  • ZIM!! (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 )
    Our Tallest will be impressed.

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