THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS

07.09

The InTerneT Is broken. LeT’s fIx IT. ROUTERS ARE PRICEY POWER HOGS, SAYS INTERNET PIONEER LARRY ROBERTS. HIS RADICAL REDESIGN CURES WHAT AILS THEM

BUILDING A MONSTER LASER

GERMANY’S GREEN-ENERGY GAP volume 46 number 7 north american 07.09

update 13 Interplanetary Internet weaving a different kind of web— in space. By Elise Ackerman

14 of cows and power lInes

15 what’s the poInt of Intel’s MobIle Internet devIce?

16 kIng coal eats Its veggIes

17 Is thIs the MoMent for broadband over power lInes?

18 jordan’s hIgh-tech water plan

20 the bIg pIctUre three robots in search of an author. opinion 28 10 spectral lInes our new Web site allows users to explore the content-rich world of IEEE Spectrum and Ieee.

12 forUM Spectrum’s May article on world- shaking microchips rakes in responses.

27 reflectIons some engineering problems are wicked hard. By Robert W. Lucky departments 4 back story Lasers aim for IcBMs but hit mosquitoes. 40 34 6 contrIbUtors laser cover story geek lIfe FOCUseD: 22 A dream phone turns out to be Northrop only a dream. By Susan Karlin Grumman 34 a radical 24 Put 470 000 words in your pocket. research creates By Steven Cherry a weapons- new router grade laser; 23 careers Lawrence Today’s network routers are choking on streaming video and peer-to- Art curators get help from signal- roberts is peer file sharing. A new router design that keeps track of individual processing researchers. By Susan Karlin wired up; it’s data flows promises a fix.By Lawrence G. Roberts all too quiet 24 hands on on Germany’s Add a virtual wristwatch to your other green-energy 28 ray guns get real DIy projects. By James Turner front. For 50 years, the U.S. military has wanted a solid-state laser weapon 25 books 179 mathematical teasers for that can destroy targets at the speed of light without collateral damage. readers 11 to 88. By Clive Feather The latest batch of contenders brings some new ideas to the hunt for 26 tools & toys COVER: the ultimate weapon. By Jeff Hecht Wiring your entire house for sound has JOnathan never been easier. By Tekla S. Perry SpRaguE/ REdux 40 germany’s green-energy gap 56 the data phOtOS, ClOCkwiSE fROm tOp lEft: telcos are laying as many underwater nORthROp gRumman; The offshore wind farms that were to replace nuclear- and coal-fired cables as they did in the dot-com JOnathan SpRaguE/ REdux; pEtER faiRlEy power plants aren’t coming online quickly enough. By Peter Fairley heyday. By Steven Cherry www.spectrum.ieee.org juLy 2009 • Ieee sPectruM • NA 1 volume 46 number 7 north american 07.09

tech INsIDer WeBINArs check out all webinars, including these below, at www.spectrum.ieee. org/webinar: Windows embedded: the Platform for connected, efficient Industrial Devices creating Powerful Data-capture solutions episode II: sense, think, Act for unmanned robotic systems Multiphysics simulation

WWW.Ieee.orG/ theINstItute available 7 july on the institute online technology for rural classrooms Bringing educational materials to sPectruM.Ieee.orG students in impoverished and remote areas is the goal of Ieee Fellow Krishna Palem. Learn about the LeD the web site: new! improved! solar-powered tablet Pc, called IEEE Spectrum has a new look online. But the changes are more than the I-slate, that he and his team developed to replace a blackboard. skin deep. So now that you’re looking at the new home page [above], what should you do next? getting your n Browse the latest, most popular n Interact: Leave a comment, name out in stories: use the arrow buttons to anywhere—on articles, videos, or flip through the top stories with blog entries. then subscribe to the cyberspace big photographs. or scroll down comment rss feed to keep track of the more your name appears on the and click the tabs to view the most what other visitors are saying. Internet in connection with your field, popular stories of the week. the better your chances of landing n Gorge on feeds: click the rss a job, getting a plum assignment, or n check out a topic of interest: In button in your address bar and get just making a new and useful contact, the black navigation bar, click to exactly what you want. you can career experts say. Ieee members have browse one of 11 categories or more subscribe to a single blog, a specific an advantage over others because than 60 subcategories, each filled category of content, or just get one they can create an online presence in with a mix of blogs, articles, and feed with everything. It’s up to you! a number of ways. Find out how. multimedia content. n Watch and listen: click the n Find exactly what you’re looking “Multimedia” link at the top of the tech in for: use the improved search page to check out videos, podcasts, the movies: function, which lets you search the and slide shows. entire site or narrow your search james bond down to a particular content type n Get related content: When james Bond movies are famous or blog. you’re reading an article, look to the for their futuristic technologies and right—the site automatically provides gadgets. Frederik Nebeker of the links to related Spectrum articles and Ieee history center discusses the relevant papers in the Ieee Xplore® technologies behind some of the digital library. top Bond gadgets over the years.

Ieee spectrUM (IssN 0018-925) is published monthly by the Institute of electrical and electronics engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2009 by the Institute of electrical and electronics engineers, Inc.,  Park Avenue, New york, Ny 10016-5997, u.s.A. the editorial content of Ieee spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the Ieee or its organizational units. canadian Post International Publications Mail (canadian Distribution) sales Agreement No. 4001087. return undeliverable canadian addresses to: circulation Department, Ieee spectrum, Box 1051, Fort erie, oN L2A 6c7. cable address: ItrIPLee. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INterNet: [email protected]. ANNuAL suBscrIPtIoNs: Ieee Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $99. PostMAster: Please send address changes to Ieee spectrum, c/o coding Department, Ieee service center, 445 hoes Lane, Box 11, Piscataway, Nj 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New york, Ny, and additional mailing offices. canadian Gst #12564188. Printed at W224-N22 Duplainville rd., Pewaukee, WI 5072-4195, u.s.A. Ieee spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. Ieee spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and the society of National Association Publications. www.spectrum.ieee.org juLy 2009 • Ieee sPectruM • NA  back story

editorial

EdITor IN chIEF Susan hassler, [email protected]

ExEcUTIVE EdITor Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] Wood, a protégé of Edward MANAGING EdITor Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] Teller’s, had managed to build SENIor EdITorS harry Goldstein (online), [email protected]; Jean Kumagai, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), a laser accurate enough to fry [email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. ross, mosquitoes in midflight. [email protected]; david Schneider, [email protected]; William Sweet, [email protected] Hecht was delighted. The SENIor ASSocIATE EdITor Steven cherry (resources), veteran technology correspondent [email protected] has been writing about lasers, ASSocIATE EdITorS Sally Adee, [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, [email protected]; Joshua J. romero (online), optoelectronics, and solid-state [email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected]

physics since 1974 for such ASSISTANT EdITor Willie d. Jones, [email protected] publications as Laser Focus World, SENIor coPy EdITor Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] New Scientist, and the Bulletin coPy EdITor Michele Kogon, [email protected] of the Atomic Scientists. In fact, EdITorIAL rESEArchEr Alan Gardner, [email protected] he had come up with this same ExEcUTIVE ProdUcEr, SPEcTrUM rAdIo Sharon Basco ASSISTANT ProdUcEr, SPEcTrUM rAdIo Francesco Ferorelli, mosquito-killing scheme himself [email protected]

and submitted the idea in the AdMINISTrATIVE ASSISTANTS ramona Gordon, [email protected]; form of a short science-fiction Nancy T. hantman, [email protected] story to the journal Nature. The INTErN rosaleen ortiz, [email protected] coNTrIBUTING EdITorS John Blau, robert N. charette, story, called “Directed Energy: Peter Fairley, david Kushner, robert W. Lucky, More Than a Flash in the Pan,” Paul McFedries, Kieron B. Murphy, Prachi Patel, carl Selinger, Seema Singh, John Voelcker was published in 2006—a full Lasers, Great year before Wood suggested his art & production mosquito zapper. SENIor ArT dIrEcTor Mark Montgomery ASSocIATE ArT dIrEcTor Michael Solita The idea is destined to become and Small ASSISTANT ArT dIrEcTor Brandon Palacio more than a sci-fi figment. Bill PhoTo EdITor randi Silberman

Gates recently announced he dIrEcTor, PErIodIcALS ProdUcTIoN SErVIcES Peter Tuohy s children, we fantasize would put the considerable weight EdITorIAL & WEB ProdUcTIoN MANAGEr roy carubia about lasers that could of his charitable foundation SENIor ELEcTroNIc LAyoUT SPEcIALIST Bonnie Nani blast a spaceship into behind the project, with the goal WEB ProdUcTIoN coordINATor Jacqueline L. Parker A MULTIMEdIA ProdUcTIoN SPEcIALIST Michael Spector smithereens. As adults, drinking of eradicating malaria. gin and tonic outdoors on a “Is it really possible that I came editorial advisory Board summer evening, we’d settle up with such a wild and crazy idea Susan hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine d. Berman, Jan Brown, raffaello d’Andrea, Stephen L. diamond, hiromichi for a much smaller laser to before Lowell Wood—the master Fujisawa, Kenneth y. Goldberg, Susan hackwood, Bin he, Erik vaporize mosquitoes. of wild and crazy ideas?” Hecht heijne, charles h. house, david h. Jacobson, christopher J. James, ronald G. Jensen, Mary y. Lanzerotti, ruby B. Lee, Tak Jeff Hecht [above] is just the asks. The Pentagon’s Ming Mak, david A. Mindell, c. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew man to tell you how either one research effort into M. odlyzko, Leslie d. owens, Barry L. Shoop, Larry L. Smarr, harry L. “Nick” Tredennick III, Sergio Verdu, William Weihl, would work. He was putting the laser “death rays” Bas¸ak yüksel

finishing touches on this month’s is celebrating editorial correspondence “Ray Guns Get Real,” about the its 50th birthday IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New york, Ny 10016-5997 U.S. military’s program to create this year, but Attn: Editorial dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 Bureau: Palo Alto, calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 328 7570 a massive solid-state laser, when without delivering anything responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon the some interesting news came out capable of torching a tank or authors, not the IEEE or its members. Articles published do not represent official positions of the IEEE. Letters to the editor may of Washington state: Researchers melting a missile. So perhaps it’s be excerpted for publication. there had successfully tested a fitting that the first casualties advertising correspondence

“mosquito flashlight,” designed of the laser death ray should be IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New york, Ny 10016-5997 c D to kill the insects before they mosquitoes. “The way the funding Attn: Advertising dept. +1 212 419 7760 c The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising. can snack on you. A team of for the military lasers is going,” any/ TH astrophysicists formerly with Hecht says, “I think the mosquito reprint permission LIBrArIES: Articles may be photocopied for private use Lawrence Livermore National death ray just might make it into of patrons. A per-copy fee must be paid to the copyright Laboratory, including Lowell production first.” o clearance center, 29 congress St., Salem, MA 01970.

For other copying or republication, contact Business Manager, om: James Ga D.

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citing articles in ieee spectrum coPyrIGhTS ANd TrAdEMArKS: IEEE Spectrum is a registered ; Bo IEEE Spectrum publishes two editions. In the international edition, the abbreviation INT appears at the trademark owned by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics HT foot of each page. The North American edition is identified with the letters NA. Both have the same Engineers Inc. careers, EEs’ Tools & Toys, EV Watch, Progress, editorial content, but because of differences in advertising, page numbers may differ. In citations, reflections, Spectral Lines, and Technically Speaking are you should include the issue designation. For example, the first Update page is in IEEE Spectrum, trademarks of the IEEE. Vol. 45, no. 7 (INT), July 2009, p. 9, or in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 45, no. 7 (NA), July 2009, p. 13. Top: Lois Hec Lois Top:  na • ieee spectrum • July 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org iEEE mEdiA Staff Director; PubliSher, IEEE SpEctrum James a. Vick, [email protected] aSSociate PubliSher, SaleS & aDVertiSing Director Marion Delaney, [email protected] ElisE AckErmAn, Feather is an Internet regulatory recruitMent SaleS DeVeloPMent Manager Michael buryk, [email protected] technology writer for expert and an amateur historian buSineSS Manager robert t. ross the San Jose Mercury of the London Underground. Marketing & ProMotion Manager blanche Mcgurr, [email protected] News, began her tech- interactiVe Marketing Manager ruchika anand, [email protected] reporting career after susAn kArlin liSt/recruitMent Marketing Manager ilia rodriguez, [email protected] covering the Clinton sex scandal in lists among her rePrint SaleS +1 212 221 9595, ext. 319 the 1990s. “Space missions and achievements acting, DePartMent aDMiniStrator faith h. Jeanty, [email protected] aDVertiSing SaleS +1 212 419 7760 artificial intelligence are just more drawing, traveling telePhone aDVertiSing/SaleS rePreSentatiVe interesting than Monica Lewinsky’s to every continent John restchack +1 212 419 7578 aDVertiSing ProDuction Manager felicia Spagnoli blue dress,” she says. But Ackerman on Earth, and writing for publica- Senior aDVertiSing ProDuction coorDinator nicole evans was never a stranger to technology. tions such as The New York Times, aDVertiSing ProDuction +1 732 562 6334 The daughter of a computer Entertainment Weekly, and ieee Staff executiVe, PublicationS anthony Durniak scientist, she grew up with Spectrum. For this issue she iEEE BoArd of dirEctorS PreSiDent & ceo John r. Vig IEEE Spectrum on the coffee table. follows the trail of a coffee- +1 732 562 3928 fax: +1 732 465 6444 [email protected] In “Interplanetary Internet Tested” making cellphone in “Phone-y PreSiDent-elect Pedro a. ray treaSurer Peter W. Staecker [p. 13], she looks at how a team from Brew” [p. 22] and reports on an Secretary barry l. Shoop the University of Colorado at electrical engineer who helps PaSt PreSiDent lewis M. terman Boulder is working to extend museums spot fake van Goghs in VicE prESidENtS Earth’s Internet structure to space. “Art Fraud Forensics” [p. 23]. teofilor amos, Educational Activities; Jon g. rokne, Publication Services & Products; Joseph V. lillie, Member & Geographic Activities; W. charlton adams, President, Standards Association; harold l. flescher, Technical Activities; gordon W. Day, President, IEEE-USA PEtEr FAirlEy, lAwrEncE G. diViSioN dirEctorS a contributing editor, robErts led the giovanni De Micheli (i); robert e. hebner Jr. (ii); writes about energy team of scientists curtis a. Siller Jr. (iii); roger W. Sudbury (iV); Deborah M. cooper (V); Mark i. Montrose (Vi); for Spectrum. When who developed John D. McDonald (Vii); Stephen l. Diamond (Viii); frederick c. Mintzer (ix); richard a. Volz (x) he started research ARPANET, the for “Germany’s Green-Energy Gap” predecessor of the Internet, in the rEgioN dirEctorS howard e. Michel (1); William P. Walsh Jr. (2); William b. ratcliff [p. 40], he anticipated that the late 1960s. In “A Radical New (3); Don c. bramlett (4); David J. Pierce (5); leonard J. bond (6); ferial el-hawary (7); Jozef W. Modelski (8); enrique e. alvarez nation’s efforts to replace coal- and Router” [p. 34], he proposes (9); yong Jin Park (10) nuclear-fueled electricity with dumping his old router design for dirEctorS EmErituS power from offshore wind turbines one that will better handle the eric herz, theodore W. hissey might provide a road map for other complexities of today’s audio and iEEE StAff countries. He discovered, though, video Web traffic. Not that Roberts executiVe Director & coo James Prendergast +1 732 502 5400, [email protected] that Germany’s green-energy push watches movies or listens to music huMan reSourceS betsy Davis, SPhr has stalled. His article reveals why. online. “I don’t get a lot off the +1 732 465 6434, [email protected] PublicationS anthony Durniak Fairley also writes about a strategy Internet in that way,” he says. +1 732 562 3998, [email protected] eDucational actiVitieS Douglas gorham to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions “I don’t even watch TV.” +1 732 562 5483, [email protected] from power plants by mixing StanDarDS actiVitieS Judith gorman +1 732 562 3820, [email protected] n;

biomass with coal, in “King Coal JAmEs turnEr, MeMber & geograPhic actiVitieS cecelia Jankowski A

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sifts through code for a portable technical actiVitieS Mary Ward-callan A +1 732 562 3850, [email protected] n; C erm Professor Stewart’s Linux-embedded bar-code scanner A Managing Director, ieee-uSa chris brantley B il

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Jon g. rokne, Chair; tayfun akgul, george W. arnold, John lise A Curiosities in “Puzzles by the printed the information on library baillieul, Silvio e. barbin, tamer basar, tariq S. Durrani, Mohamed e ther;

e. el-hawary, gerald l. engel, Marion o. hagler, Jens hannemann, A

Drawerful” [p. 25]. He says that if cards and put them in a “genuine e f

lajos hanzo, hirohisa kawamoto, William W. Moses, adrian V. he had to pick a favorite trick two-drawer card-catalog box I got Pais, edward g. Perkins, Saifur rahman, Sorel reisman, edward A

a. rezek, barry l. Shoop, emily a. Sopensky, W. ross Stone, ravi ind from the book, the one he off eBay.” In “Time Is on Your Side” M. todi, robert J. trew, leung tsang, karl r. Varian, Stephen l yurkovich probably had the most fun with [p. 24], Turner describes his latest urner;

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 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • July 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org spectral lines

IEEE Spectrum Online: Content Is Liberated!

ucky you: A quarter and Computing, we’ve of a billion Web sites added new channels we L now compete for your think you’ll find compelling: attention. Meanwhile, desk Aerospace, Green Tech, and jockeys are uploading Robotics, as well as the 20 hours of video to career-oriented At Work YouTube every minute— and the lifestyle-based that’s 33 minutes of content Geek Life. These channels a second. Twitter and other let you drill down into social networks, with their deep reserves of Spectrum constant stream of updates, content, much of which you like robotics, which are do best—keep you abreast suck up whatever spare time may never have seen before. drawing return visitors of the latest technological you might have left. We’ve also expanded our and building connections innovations and provide It was against this tumult multimedia offerings by among engineers with you with a context in that we set out, 20 months adding audio slide shows, similar interests. which to understand ago, to revamp IEEE which showcase our staff’s A great Web site gives the their implications. Spectrum Online (spectrum. expertise in gathering illusion that it was effortless Which brings us to our ieee.org). The motivation compelling audio—used to create. Nothing could be second usability study was straightforward: in our broadcast-quality further from the truth. The takeaway: We need to make To thrive, we’ve got to podcasts—along with long process of improving sure Spectrum Online make our Web site a part stunning photography, our Web site started with allows you to explore the of your daily media diet. which you can now usability studies of the content-rich world of both The new site was enjoy on practically existing site. As we watched Spectrum and IEEE. In doing unveiled in early June, with every page of our site. through a one-way mirror, so we hope to promote IEEE everything you need to troll And everywhere you people attempted to perform to new audiences of potential through our vast, nutrient- go, starting with our easy- tasks like signing up for a members while connecting rich information or quickly to-navigate home page, you webinar, posting comments the dots for current zero in on a specific bit will be guided by the choices to a blog, or finding an members and other users. of knowledge. Instead of you and your fellow visitors article. It will come as no We’re already automatically updating the site daily, we’re make via our traveling table surprise that most Web sites linking to related content blasting out new stories in of contents: Most Viewed, have major “user experience” from the IEEE Xplore multiple mediums several Most E-mailed, and Most problems. Our site proved digital library on pages times a day, which you can Commented-on boxes appear to be no exception. throughout the site. And now follow by using our everywhere to help guide Sufficiently chastened, we’re planning to bring you RSS feeds. We’ve liberated you to the hottest content. we did some soul searching related content from IEEE’s our blog and multimedia Building a community and then moved on to societies and conferences content from the silos where around our site was so making it better. We had to in the very near future. they’ve languished far too important to us—and to rethink the way people find We’d love to hear what long. Every hour, the latest you, our loyal visitors— what they want, talk about you think about our latest entries from our blogs— that we’ve improved the it with each other, and keep effort and your suggestions Automaton, EnergyWise, ease with which you can coming back for more. For for making things better. Risk Factor, Sandbox, and leave comments and join us, that meant building the And for a list of all the Tech Talk—pop up all over the conversation around site so that the content we folks who worked so the site, including in our topics of the day. Even the produce on the back end hard to make the new site topical, newly refurbished sponsors of our webinars automatically winds up in possible, go to spectrum. channels and subchannels. are stoking the community the right spots on the front ieee.org/static/thank-you. In addition to our vibe by offering series end, freeing our writers —Harry Goldstein stalwarts Semiconductors of live events on topics and editors to do what they & Joshua J. Romero

10 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • July 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org forum

can shed some light for the waters: analysis of each hensible robot in “Futurama”? Answer: What these chips have in common is on the timeline for “I was misinformed.” activity and wrote that they’re part of the reason why engi- I neers don’t get out enough. Of course, lists like this are nothing if not contentious. Some may accuse us of the Intersil ICL8038 I apologize for the error. all the background capricious choices and blatant omissions (and, no, it won’t be the first time). Why Intel’s 8088 microprocessor and not the waveform generator, as information describing 4004 (the first) or the 8080 (the famed)? Where’s the radiation-hardened military- grade RCA 1802 processor that was the brains of numerous spacecraft? I was vice president of he most important the engineering If you take only one thing away from this introduction, let it be this: Our list is what remained after weeks of raucous R&D at Intersil prior ICs ever have to be principles. The debate between the author, his trusted T sources, and several editors of IEEE Spectrum. We never intended to com- to cofounding Maxim the Texas Instruments project was truly pile an exhaustive reckoning of every chip that was a commercial success or a major technical advance. Nor could we include chips that were great but so Integrated Products 7400 series. This set a joint venture obscure that only the five engineers who MICROCHIPS designed them would remember them. We focused on chips that proved unique, in 1983. In the early of chips formed the between Shingler and intriguing, awe-inspiring. We wanted chips of varied types, from both big and small companies, created long ago or 1970s, Jack Gifford major stepping-stone Valparaiso University. THAT SHOOK more recently. Above all, we sought ICs that had an impact on the lives of lots of people—chips that became part of earth- shaking gadgets, symbolized technologi- and I contacted Hans to the digital age. cal trends, or simply delighted people. Eric W. Johnson For each chip, we describe how it came THE WORLD about and why it was innovative, with comments from the engineers and exec- Camenzind about Their compactness, IEEE Member utives who architected it. And because we’re not the IEEE Annals of the History n microchip design, as in life, groping for more technology clichés to of Computing, we didn’t order the 25 chips doing a contract design functionality, Valparaiso, Ind. small things sometimes add up chronologically or by type or importance; to big things. Dream up a clever gave us the technology that made our we arbitrarily scattered them on these microcircuit, get it sculpted in brief, otherwise tedious existence in this pages in a way we think makes for a good for Intersil. Initially, speed, and logical a sliver of silicon, and your lit- universe worth living. read. History is messy, after all. tle creation may unleash a tech- We’ve compiled here a list of 25 ICs As a bonus, we asked eminent tech- nological revolution. It happened with that we think deserve the best spot on nologists about their favorite chips. Ever the Intel 8088 microprocessor. And the the mantelpiece of the house that Jack wonder which IC has a special place we were thinking of completeness gave memory Mostek MK4096 4-kilobit DRAM. And Kilby and Robert Noyce built. Some in the hearts of both Gordon Moore, the Texas Instruments TMS32010 digi- have become enduring objects of wor- of Intel, and Morris Chang, founder of tal signal processor. ship among the chiperati: the Signetics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing an improved timer designers flexibility for refresh Among the many great chips that 555 timer, for example. Others, such as Company? (Hint: It’s a DRAM chip.) have emerged from fabs during the half- the Fairchild 741 operational amplifier, We also want to know what you think. century reign of the integrated circuit, a became textbook design examples. Some, Is there a chip whose absence from our small group stands out. Their designs - list sent you into paroxysms of rage? based on the success creative and affordable n the article about proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, controllers,havesoldbillions,andarestill Take a few deep breaths, have a nice so ahead of their time, that we are left doing so. A precious few, like Toshiba’s cup of chamomile tea, and then go to flash memory, created whole new mar- http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may09/ of Hans’s 555 design. designs. Future ICs Robert Dennard kets. And one, at least, became a geeky 25chips. There you can drop us a line I reference in popular culture. Question: and check out the runners-up that didn’t BY BRIAN R. SANTO What processor powers Bender, the alco- make the list and more favorite picks by However, after some followed the lead— [“Thanks for the holic, chain-smoking, morally repre- other luminaries. 34 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • MAY 2009 WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG discussions the and the rest is history. Memories,” May], the idea of a waveform definition of dynamic Jack Sterett generator evolved, Portland, Ore. RAM, or DRAM, is Letters do not Now which Hans designed wrong. The article says represent opinions ProcessiNg: for us. The part was Time To give it’s called “dynamic” of Ieee. short, concise letters are “chiPs” introduced around crediT because the act of reading preferred. they don’t know who to 1973 and became an enjoyed Sherry the bit erases it, but the may be edited I thank for “25 Microchips immediate success with I Sontag’s review of correct name for that for space and That Shook the World” hobbyists and low-cost- the video game Time behavior is “destructive clarity. to post your [May]—especially the instrument makers. It Engineers [“Time Waits read.” The term comments online, go to http://www. sidebar “My Favorite was manufactured for for No Engineer,” Tools “dynamic” is used because spectrum.ieee.org. Chip.” Wonderful the next three decades, & Toys, May]. The the memory must be Or write to Forum, article. Who would have a testimony to the game’s development refreshed to avoid losing IEEE Spectrum, anticipated that such soundness of both the was funded by a data, as the article does 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, great stories and such product definition and grant to Valparaiso note. Dynamic RAM is NY 10016-5997, interesting information its design. University through the an alternative to static U.s.A.; fax, could have come out of Eli Lilly Foundation, RAM, which does not David Fullagar +1 212 419 7570; one neat little idea. Kudos. Los Gatos, Calif. and I served as project need to be refreshed. e-mail, n.hantman director. While @ieee.org. Larry Tomenga Steven Rothman IEEE Affiliate Member rian R. Santo might Ray Shingler was IEEE Member Carrollton, Texas B consider correcting subcontracted to create Bolton, Mass. his statement that the the game environment ow in the world ICL8038 chip was used and all graphics, The editor responds: H could you not in Moog synthesizers. I want to be sure that We agree, regret the include the Intel 4004? I’ve been repairing Moog my colleagues in the error, and thank Not only was it the first synthesizers for more College of Engineering reader Rothman. microprocessor, but its than 33 years and have at Valparaiso, in invention and develop- yet to locate any Moog Indiana, are recognized ment is also one of the that used this IC. for contributing to correcTioN great stories of the semi- the game. Five faculty Veteran space reporter Kevin Lightner conductor industry. Oh Wrightwood, Calif. members (including James Oberg is tall, but well, at least it’s well doc- two IEEE members) not quite as tall as we umented on the Internet. The author responds: developed the eight claimed he was in our About the ICL8038 being different engineering June issue. The Back Robert Gilchrist Huenemann in the Moog, all I can say activities. They Story gave his height as IEEE Life Member is what Bogart said about designed and tested 213 centimeters. In fact, Hollister, Calif. coming to Casablanca the software for the he is 205 cm tall.

12 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • July 2009 www.SpecTrum.Ieee.Org more online at www.spectrum.ieee.org

work, the intermittent nature SKY Net: using of network connections, and computers on Interplanetary Internet Tested the international bit-scrambling solar radiation. Space Station, Delay-tolerant network will weave a different “The communication delays engineers tested kind of web in space are huge, and they are variable, the protocols because the planets are in orbit for a future around the sun,” says Vint Cerf, interplanetary internet in he many paths a message system—effectively binding them co-inventor of the Internet’s TCP/ may 2009. can take through the together to form an interplanetary IP protocol and a key member of a photo: NASA T Internet make that network Internet. Tests performed on the group of computer scientists who robust and efficient—and the envy International Space Station last began working on DTN in 1998. of those whose job it is to design May were the second of three On Earth, packets move from communications schemes for tryouts of the network’s key source to destination in millisec- the far-flung spacecraft leaving technologies, called Delay Tolerant onds. By contrast, a one-way trip Earth each year. After more Networking, or DTN, protocols. from Earth to Mars takes a mini- than a decade of development, The DTN protocols will extend mum of 8 minutes. The constant NASA is in a rush to have a the terrestrial Internet into space motion of celestial bodies means communications network ready by overcoming a number of that packets have to pause and wait by 2011 that can efficiently carry obstacles, including the extraor- for antennas to align as they hop data between Earth and the dinary length of time it takes from planet to probe to spacecraft. multiple probes, rovers, orbiters, packets to move between sepa- So sending communications and spacecraft exploring the solar rate hops in a deep-space net- in space is very different from www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SPEctrum • NA 13 doing so on Earth, where as that probe headed out for has been working on DTN protocol as well as a new the stable topology of the a flyby of Comet Hartley 2. with Burleigh and others. file-transfer protocol. After Internet is taken for granted. “We turned on the software on A key to DTN is a that, DTN will be “pretty “What we have to do the spacecraft and on about technique called “store and much ready for deep-space instead is to tell all the nodes a dozen nodes on Earth and forward.” Basically, every research,” says Jay Wyatt, that these are the changes that just left it running, completely node hangs onto the data it the NASA program manager are going to occur,” says Scott automatic for about a month,” receives until it can safely who has been coordinating Burleigh, a software engineer Burleigh says. During the pass it on. On Earth, the data the project. At that point, the at NASA’s Jet Propulsion test about 300 images were would simply get dumped if researchers are hoping other Laboratory, in Pasadena, transmitted over distances there was a problem and be space agencies will try it also. Calif., and one of the original that stretched up to 24 million retransmitted by the source. Mitre’s Scott chairs developers of DTN. “You kilometers. Although a The second test, con- a working group at the are going to be able to couple of bugs were found, no ducted by Kevin Gifford Consultative Committee for communicate from A to B at packets were dropped, and at the Payload Operations Space Data Systems, an inter- this data rate starting at 12:30 no bits got corrupted. The Control Center at the national organization that and ending at 3:30, and then software even survived the University of Colorado, recommends standards for you are not going to be able unintentional reboot of one Boulder, used comput- spacecraft communications. to communicate on that link of the Earth-based antennas. ers on board the ISS to They are considering anymore...until next Tuesday.” “The protocols underneath send images to Earth. adopting DTN. Then, mission An initial test of DTN it were able to recover the For a third test, by mission, a network would in space last October was data and actually get stuff scheduled for early October grow, weaving an inter- successful. The code was through,” says Keith Scott, a and involving the Deep connected Web between the loaded on a comet-studying principal engineer at Mitre Impact spacecraft, engineers planets, the space station, and spacecraft called Deep Impact Corp., in Reston, Va., who will introduce a security spacecraft. —Elise Ackerman

Of Cows and Power Lines A team of researchers from Germany and the Czech Republic has discovered that, all factors being equal, cattle and two species of deer tend to align themselves along a north-south axis using some innate magnetic sense and that this preferred alignment is disturbed when they graze under high-voltage power lines. For their research, Professor Hynek Burda and his team at Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen pored over images from Google Earth. When they spotted cattle that were at least 150 meters away from power lines, the researchers detected a significant alignment among the animals along the north-south axis. By contrast, images of cattle grazing within 50 meters of high-voltage overhead power lines showed S e

no preferred body alignment. The exception was when AG the power lines ran east to west. In that case, the cattle tended to align along the direction of the power lines. de/Getty Im More at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/ A of-cows-and-power-lines eter C p

14 NA • iEEE SPEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org the deepest dive ever, performed 31 may 2009 at the mariana trench in the western Pacific 10 902 mEtErS Ocean. the victorious vehicle was Nereus, an unmanned submarine tethered to the surface by an optical fiber. the sub, built by engineers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic institution, can operate either remotely or autonomously.

SIZe MAtteRS: is there room news in an iPhone world for the mobile internet Device? briefs photoS: Left, CLArIoN; rIGht, AppLe BENDABLE MEMRISTORS better movie viewing. He also Researchers at thinks that road warriors who do a the National lot of videoconferencing might also Institute of prefer a device with a bigger screen Standards and Technology than what’s on a smartphone. report that “I can name lots of potential they’ve users, but none add up to massive developed a success,” Blakely says. flexible memory Little Mass Appeal Pankaj Kedia, director of that acts much like the new global ecosystem programs fundamental for Intel’s Mobile at Intel, agrees that there are circuit element clusters of types of users rather known as the than a single big market segment. memristor. The memristor’s Internet Device He describes the MID computer resistance A device to fill the gap between smartphones as a flexible concept rather than changes and netbooks struggles to find a market a specific size and shape. “The according to devices are very personal, subject how much he mobile-computing- It’s no coincidence that Intel to personal taste,” he says. current passes through it, and device market is a little has the perfect processor to power Says Kedia, “It may be it maintains its T like the car market. On such a computer—the Atom, pocketable, a smartphone resistance when the high end, you’ve got your launched last year. It’s powerful replacement. For that I want the the power is big, fully loaded luxury models— enough to run full versions of screen size to be 4 inches, to fit in turned off. The NIST device still that would be your large-screen standard software, like Microsoft my jeans pocket. For navigation, in functions even laptops. On the low end, you’ve Office. It’s efficient enough to do your car, research has shown that after being flexed got your park-anywhere, use- so for hours without recharging. a 5-inch display is more optimal. In 4000 times. minimal-power gizmos—your (You’ll rarely see a netbook user the enterprise space, interviewing photo: NISt smartphones. In between, you’ve today without a power cord.) So clients, looking at data, you need a got a range of sedans and low- indeed, you could build a small, 6- to 7-inch display.” cost compacts—your tablet PCs, powerful, efficient MID computer. Indeed, points out Ken Dulaney, subnotebooks, and netbooks. But if you build it, will they a vice president and distinguished Seems like plenty of variety come? analyst with Gartner Research, in that lineup, but Intel—for The answer, says Dave Blakely Intel is right to back down on its more than a year now and hot of Ideo, the Palo Alto, Calif., firm original vision of the MID as a on the heels of its promotion of that did the product design for new class of all-purpose lifestyle netbooks—has been evangelizing the original Apple mouse and the computers, because that just isn’t a new entrant, a device it calls Palm V—is maybe. going to happen. “Intel badly the MID computer, for Mobile “It is an entirely viable product miscalculated this space,” he says. Internet Device. Others refer to for a small slice of the mobile “The iPhone showed that people it as the ultracompact computer computing population,” says want a slightly smaller product or the tweener. As described Blakely, Ideo’s senior director in that can be used as a convenient at multiple industry events by charge of technology strategy. phone; you can’t put a MID in Intel, such a computer would fill “But that is a fractured slice. I can’t your shirt pocket or hold it up to a niche, being more portable and name a single significant market your head.” less power hungry than a netbook, segment or single killer app.” Still, it might not be smart to yet having a bigger screen and As examples of those slivers completely write off this device. “It providing more functions than of the computer market, Blakely has a shot,” says Blakely. “We’ve a smartphone. Intel’s vision, points to women who carry purses seen a history of products with originally a device about the size big enough to make the size brand-new form factors appear in of a standard videocassette, seems difference between a smartphone the world: There were people who now to be shifting to embrace and a MID computer irrelevant. thought the Sony Walkman would multiple shapes and sizes. They might pick the MID for its never make it.” —Tekla S. Perry www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SPEctrum • NA 15 King Coal Eats Its Vegetables Blending in biomass makes coal-fired generators seem a little cleaner

apturing carbon- dioxide emissions C and sequestering them deep underground is often presented as the sole means of significantly cutting the carbon emissions from a coal-fired power plant. In fact, this as-yet-unproven scheme is being beaten to the punch renewable portfolio standard with a modest addition of that include CO2 capture by a comparatively simple in 2002. The UK’s first equipment to store and provide a net extraction of alternative: blending biomass cofiring operation started handle the renewable fuels. carbon from the atmosphere. into the plant’s coal feed. up the same year, and by The upgrade costs for cofiring “If you combine the two, you Adding agricultural 2006 cofiring was generating range from US $50 to $300 have a sort of CO2 vacuum,” leftovers, wood chips, or more than 2.5 terawatt-hours per kilowatt. That’s less than says Marc Londo, a biofuels even dried sewage replaces of electricity annually and a third of the price tag for an expert at the Energy some of the power plant’s displacing 2.6 percent of onshore wind farm and one Research Centre of the fossil carbon with renewable the power sector’s coal use. order of magnitude cheaper Netherlands, in Amsterdam. carbon. Such “cofiring” More cofiring is coming, as than building a standalone On the flip side, says of coal and biomass is Drax Power, operator of biomass generator. Londo, cofiring may look beginning to boom, thanks the UK’s largest generator Biomass burned with less beneficial if carbon to preferential pricing and (4000 megawatts), in coal also delivers more capture fails to pan out. tax incentives supporting North Yorkshire, boosts energy per ton of fuel than That’s because cofiring renewable energy, standards the proportion of power the biomass burned alone. The extends the economic mandating utilities to utility generates through typically smaller biomass- viability of coal-fired power obtain more of their cofiring from 2.5 percent to only generators convert just while diluting support for power from renewable 12.5 percent. Drax boasts that 25 percent of their fuel energy alternatives such as solar resources, and carbon from next year its renewable into electricity. Conventional and wave power. For this caps that make utilities generation will rival that of coal plants average reason, the UK has capped pay for CO2 emissions. 600 wind turbines, slashing 36 percent thermodynamic cofiring’s contribution to its Europe, which already annual CO2 emissions by efficiency, and the efficiency renewables mandate. Londo employs all three of these over 2.5 million metric tons. lost when blending in predicts that Europe may policies, is leading the way. Cofiring is attractive due modest proportions similarly limit cofiring’s role S In the United Kingdom, to its low installation price of biomass is small. in its mandates. As Londo euter r

cofiring has become one of relative to most alternative If carbon capture and puts it, “It’s a bad idea to / the fastest-growing sources power technologies. Coal storage does ultimately prove keep an old and relatively IS odd r

of power, following the plants accommodate up economic and safe, what then inefficient coal plant alive just L e IG

introduction of the country’s to 20 percent biomass for cofiring? Cofired plants via biomass.” —Peter Fairley N

16 NA • iEEE SPEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org the highest number a new genetically engineered strain of bacteria can count to. in their quest to create tHrEE a computational tool kit for use in biotechnology, bioengineers at Boston university and mit developed a genetic network that counts a type of molecular event in a microbe.

“We’re following the same pattern Is This the Moment as rural electric delivery back in the 1930s,” he says, referring to the government programs for Broadband Over during the Great Depression. Electric utilities’ increasing Power Lines? interest in obtaining real-time smart grids and the push for rural connectivity data on how end users are propel power-line data communications consuming electricity has also driven the resurgence of interest in BPL. Getting such news data, of course, requires both briefs long-time dark horse in Brent R. Zitting, IBEC’s chief suitably intelligent meters and a ZAP! the race to extend broad- technical officer, says that his communications network to relay band access to the far company has been able to provide the information back to the utility. Engineers at A the Fraunhofer corners of the United States— BPL in places with as few as In Boulder, Colo., for example, Institute broadband over power lines, or three houses per kilometer at Minneapolis–based Xcel Energy for Laser BPL—may have finally found its is using BPL in combination with Technology, golden moment. short-range radio links for its in Aachen, Germany, have BPL uses radio frequencies SmartGridCity pilot project. The invented a to impose the high-speed data links send data from power meters, laser system signals on top of the AC that hot-water heaters, thermostats, that can drill power lines carry. The broadband and renewable-energy systems. 3000 holes per data signals are therefore prone According to Daniel Sangines, second in a solar cell during the to disturbance, particularly from a communications engineer manufacturing the many voltage transients who until recently worked on process. The that power lines experience. SmartGridCity, the data flows holes improve One reason for the renewed along the power lines for about a the system of electrical interest in BPL is the Obama kilometer before it’s siphoned off contacts and administration’s pledge to the line and into an optical fiber or thereby the cell’s provide greater Internet access cellular-based backhaul system. efficiency. photo: to underserved Americans, even Attempting greater BPL distances frAuNhofer INStItute those living in rural areas, where would require multiple repeaters for LASer other means of providing broad- to deal with signal attenuation, teChNoLoGy band typically aren’t economical. reducing the bandwidth unac- Last February’s American ceptably, he explains. In Boulder, Recovery and Reinvestment Act the smart-grid network can pro- will provide US $2.5 billion in vide a typical home with at least a loans and grants through one data rates as high as 3 megabits 5-Mb/s link. Rather than sell the agency and $4.7 billion through per second for the company’s bandwidth, Xcel is reserving it for another to expand broadband premium service, which costs future smart-grid applications. connections for residents of rural home users $89.95 per month. While BPL seems a natural and underserved areas (as well Most customers choose the $29.95 match for the problem that electric as for public-safety agencies). option, however, which gives utilities are trying to solve, not BPL provider International only 256 kilobits per second— all smart grids are using it. Some, Broadband Electric Commu- an order of magnitude less than such as the vast grid just proposed nications (IBEC), in Huntsville, the download speeds cable offers. for Miami and environs, will Ala., is one firm likely to tap into Still, when you’re used to a likely use wireless ties rather than this new government money. 56-Kb/s dial-up connection, the BPL. Still, given the new funding IBEC works with customer- availability of 256 Kb/s is well opportunities for rural broadband owned electric cooperatives to appreciated, says Zitting. He and the burgeoning web of smart rAN

d give their members BPL, which expects that with upcoming grids, BPL is sure to keep a foot I S

IL costs less than other options government loans and grants, his in the ongoing race to network berm because so much of the necessary company will be able to expand people and their power-hungry AN infrastructure is already in place. BPL coverage to even more areas. appliances. —David Schneider

www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SPEctrum • NA 17 theoretical length of time a memory cell made from a carbon nanotube and a 1 BilliON yEArS nanocrystal of iron can hold data, according to researchers in Berkeley, calif.

SeA SouRce: the city of Aqaba will get its water supply from the ocean. photo: SANdrA upSoN

separate network—a classic conservation scheme that many advanced industri- alized countries lack. The rate at which water is lost through leaks or metering failures is less than half that for the rest of the country, which loses 43 percent of the water entering its networks. Naem Saleh, the water company’s technical and engineering director, attributes the difference to the company’s move, in 2004, to implement a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system that reads the network’s flow characteristics every few milliseconds. “The first thing in our strategy was to automate and computerize everything,” Saleh says. Working with the software company Oracle to integrate the individual controls, the utility is now Jordan’s Red Sea Desalination Plan adding artificial intelligence to react At the Aqaba water co., artificial intelligence saves water swiftly to shifts in demand. Its decision- making algorithms will be trained on the last two years of operational data. When or a small city in a water-poor generate hydropower on the canal, and complete, the system will control the country, Aqaba got lucky. The city install another desalination facility along pumps that fill the reservoirs and adjust F of 110 000 sits on the Red Sea, on the way. “Our project will be a pilot for pressure levels in the pipes to match Jordan’s only coastline. Residents get their Jordanian engineers to gain experience consumption—for example, to keep the water from 20 wells in the nearby Disi and prepare for larger desalination pressure around 500 kilopascals during aquifer, a store of ancient groundwater projects in the future,” says Imad the day and 200 kPa at night, when that straddles the border with Saudi Zureikat, general manager of Aqaba pressure can build up and cause pipes Arabia. While the rest of Jordan makes do Water Co., the city’s utility. to burst. It would also maintain pH and with a few hours of water service a week, With investors across the Gulf chlorine levels and, eventually, automate Aqaba’s supply is uninterrupted. pouring money into Aqaba, the utility the work of about 20 field technicians. Some of that happy circumstance is expects demand to double in five With Aqaba using mostly desalinated self-generated, with computer-controlled years. Business-friendly regulations water, the water in the Disi aquifer can water infrastructure and a new artificial introduced in the last eight years be preserved for Amman. A separate intelligence system that will soon manage have begun to turn the port city into a project will transport the Disi water most of it. Now Aqaba is becoming a miniature Dubai, bringing new spikes 325 kilometers uphill to Jordan’s capital. linchpin in Jordan’s grand water strategy. in water use, Zureikat says. That supply will buy Jordan the time it By the end of next year, the city plans To meet that burgeoning demand, needs to build larger desalination plants to start building Jordan’s first seawater the Aqaba Water Co. is implementing and truly harness the Red Sea. Nisreen desalination plant, which will provide new management techniques. The Haddadin, an engineer managing the 10 million to 15 million cubic meters of utility is already a model of efficiency Ministry of Water and Irrigation’s water per year, matching Aqaba’s current for the country, if not the region. In master plan, sums it up concisely: usage. The reverse-osmosis treatment stark contrast to the surrounding desert, “This is our dream.” —Sandra Upson plant will be the first step in an ambitious Aqaba’s verdant palm trees and grassy plan to build a canal to send water from patches thrive on treated wastewater, This is the first in a two-part series on water the Red Sea to the shrinking Dead Sea, or “gray water,” distributed through a technology in the Middle East.

18 NA • iEEE SPEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org 20 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • July 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org the big picture

Doppelgänger Dance Imagine how you’d feel meeting a version of yourself that never ages and will never die. That’s what the female lead character in the new play Robots must deal with. The machine is one of three (including a butler and a dog) created by the male lead, who’s on the brink of swearing off human contact in favor of his preprogrammed companions. The play’s robots are the result of a 10‑year collaboration in Lausanne, Switzerland. BlueBotics, a firm specializing in autonomous robots, came up with a laser‑ based guidance system and a scheme that uses something like a Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol for controlling the humanoids’ every move. François Junod, a renowned maker of lifelike mechanical moving figures, supplied the faux‑female machine’s fine motor coordination, allowing “her” to make subtle gestures. (Robots ran from 1 to 16 May at a theater in Servion, just outside of Lausanne.) photo: Valentin Flauraud/ reuters/landoV

geek life

In the first six months after its wildly futuristic: the pomegranate September launch, the Web site phone can brew coffee, translate foreign languages, and be played like Phone-y Brew registered more than 1 023 000 visits a harmonica. Images: ProvInce of nova scotIa How a fake coffee-making from 198 countries, led by the United phone is rebranding a States, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the phone to brew coffee, but I kept canadian province Britain. An astonishing 64 percent watching!) Then the punch line pops up: of visitors clicked through from the “Someday you’ll be able to get everything t first, the Pomegranate NS08 fake phone to the Nova Scotia pages. you want in one device. Today you seems plausible as a sleek next- At least one featured business, Ross can get everything you want in one Ageneration cellphone. But the Screenprint, in Antigonish, received place.” The site then pitches the Nova list of features goes on just a tad too calls for new business, and a Greek film Scotia lifestyle, businesses, education, long to be true: a built-in translator festival wants to screen the site’s opening culture, and local entrepreneurs. (cool), a coffeemaker (please, please), phone sequence. But success will be A creative team consisting of Web a harmonica (huh?), and finally… measured not by buzz but by results. programmers, video producers, and an electric shaver (okay, you got me!). “Our goal was to reach key an ad agency spent nine months But the Pomegranate exists only in a influencers—media, senior politicians, putting together the campaign. They YouTube video and a Web site designed CEOs, people addicted to their stamped real pomegranates with the to draw you to another Web site, that BlackBerrys,” says Stacey Jones-Oxner, campaign’s URL and passed them of the “Come to life” initiative in Nova communications advisor of the Nova out in Ottawa, Toronto, and Boston. Scotia, Canada, a partnership between Scotia campaign. “A new gadget that Then word of mouth took over. the government and 300 private did everything was the best way to While no one has seriously tried associations, schools, and businesses grab those folks, so we created one.” to buy the Pomegranate, Jones-Oxner located in the coastal province, which is The site leads users through adds, “We did get a call from Germany due east of Maine. The idea is to rebrand increasingly fantastic features until you telling us that if we decided to actually a rustic vacationland as a bastion of click “release date” or “I’ve seen enough.” make this phone, they would distribute innovative minds, creative businesses, (You’d think I’d have reached that it. So we may be onto something here.” and a balanced quality of life. point when water was poured through —Susan Karlin

22 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org careers art fraud forensics An engineer helps curators foil forgers ow many engineering jobs let you take a van Gogh off the wall Hand hold it in your hands? The kind C. Richard Johnson Jr. landed. He’s both an electrical engineering professor at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., and an adjunct research fellow at the Van Gogh Museum, in Amsterdam. As such, Johnson says, he can “speak the language of people on both sides.” And when the two sides talk, they mainly talk about fraud and how to detect it. Two years ago, Johnson organized a conference at the museum that brought together researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Princeton, in the United States painting by numbers: c. richard and Maastricht University in the johnson [left, center] uses signal-processing Netherlands. Together, they processed algorithms to authenticate canvases believed high-resolution images with specially to be painted by van Gogh. designed signal-processing algorithms Photos: van gogh museum to help sort fake van Goghs from real Johnson stumbled into art as he ones at the brushstroke level. It was wandered through Berlin museums the first time that image-processing during a college year abroad while teams at different universities could earning a bachelor’s in electrical compare authentication approaches on engineering from Georgia Tech. the same paintings. Another workshop authentication to an artist who Later, while working on his Ph.D. in will follow next year at the Museum bought canvas in rolls, as van Gogh EE at Stanford, he took a class in the of Modern Art, in New York City. often did,” he says. “When canvas is Dutch masters, which rekindled his “Fraud detection is a ‘sexy’ topic, prepared with a lead white ground, passion. In 1977, he became the first which is why it was an early focus of my the grooves between the threads are Ph.D. student to graduate from the activities,” says Johnson. “But we’re 10 to filled with radio-opaque material,” says university with a minor in art history. 15 years away from the computer having Johnson. “This registers in an X-ray He went straight into academia, any authority in it. So now my colleagues as an intensity pattern that reveals teaching at Virginia Tech until and I are pursuing a wide variety of the individual threads, permitting a 1981, when he moved to Cornell. issues of interest to conservators and calculation of the weave density.” The He was named an IEEE Fellow art historians, where signal processing pattern is then analyzed with a Fourier in 1989 for his work in digital can provide assistance that reaches well transform, the same technique that control and signal processing. beyond just the detection of frauds.” radio engineers use to break down a “This kind of research is not Johnson’s current focus is on signal into a series of simple sine waves. something to recommend to Ph.D. canvas thread counts—the number of The team is distributing the students. There are no jobs, no one’s horizontal threads crossing a vertical software free to museums. The Van eager to fund this, and it’s career killing line 1 centimeter long—to identify Gogh Museum already uses the data for any pretenure academic,” he says, paintings from the same roll of canvas. generated to identify paintings from laughing. “But for me, it’s like having a “Placing a questioned painting on the the same canvas roll by determining backstage pass. I go to a conservation same canvas roll as a painting known how the sections were arranged on studio and can take a van Gogh out of its to be from a particular artist supports the roll before being cut for use. frame and examine it.” —Susan Karlin www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 23 hands on a way to burn an image speaker wire. There are also to an electrically erasable three resistors that attach to programmable read-only the LCD module. Two control memory (EEPROM). contrast and brightness, and It can get pretty one goes between +5 volts and complicated, so a kit makes the LCD backlight power. for a nice introduction. You solder in the voltage Tuxgraphics, of St-Laurent, regulator and the LED on Que., Canada, has one for the SBC, attach six wires €50.50, or about US $70. between the SBC and the You’ll get an SBC based on LCD module, solder on the ATmega168 processor, the programming header, an 8-bit reduced-instruction- and finally run +5 and time is on your side set computer chip running ground to the SBC and or at least it will be, once you build at 20 megahertz. The LCD module. The holes this network-based clock SBC has 16 kilobytes of are tightly spaced, so if you flash memory, 5 kilobits of haven’t picked up an iron in EEPROM, and a whopping a while, you might want to here’s no longer any that, a clock on a single- 1 KB of RAM, so you’re not get in some practice first. excuse for having the board computer that uses going to be booting up Linux Along with the wire, you Twrong time. Computers, the Network Time Protocol or running Photoshop here. will also need to provide a set-top boxes, and even some (NTP) to give you millisecond But what the board lacks in source of +5. I was able to wristwatches can get their accuracy for about US $115. memory, it more than makes find a leftover wall wart with time from the U.S. Naval Single-board computers up for in hardware—it has just that voltage, but watch Observatory or some other (SBCs) are cool because they an Ethernet port, digital out—some sources claim authoritative source. But pack a lot of functionality into I/O ports, eight analog +5 but really put out far more. what about a device you a very tight package. They’re inputs, and an LED socket. The first time you build yourself? Many will scary, too, because they The second major power up you’ll see only come with a timing chip involve you in technologies component in the box is the LCD’s backlight— that you can use as a counter, that are usually taken care a 16- by 2-character LCD the SBC comes with nothing but they won’t tell you what of by off-the-shelf computing panel for displaying the time. installed on it. To get the time it is in the real world hardware. For one thing, Then there are a few odds board running, you’ll or self-adjust for daylight SBCs don’t usually come with and ends—a 3.3-volt voltage need to burn software and saving time. What you want such niceties as displays and regulator, an LED, and a 5-pin data onto the EEPROM is a microprocessor on a USB ports. And when you get header for programming and the flash memory, and computer board that will down to the smallest of the the device—which all get therein lies the major query a network for the small, you are pretty much soldered directly onto the “gotcha” of this project. correct time and pass it on dealing with a processor, SBC. You need your own wire First, you’re also going to to the rest of your device. some flash memory, a few to hook the SBC up to the need to buy a programmer This month’s project is just input/output ports, and LCD. I used 22-gauge rainbow for the SBC. Tuxgraphics

merriam-Webster’s is a pricey uS $60 but is based the right word, on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, anywhere Unabridged, the aircraft carrier in a bookstore’s fleet of American dictionaries. Merriam-Webster’s( As a teacher of creative writing, i have one Collegiate Dictionary is also available, for $25.) technotrick i couldn’t live without—looking the databases go right on the phone, so there’s up the exact definition of a word on my no time-consuming lookup that depends on a iphone while standing at the chalkboard. good connection to the internet cloud. if you love there are a number of mobile dictionary and words or need them for your work, these apps thesaurus applications now, but the best are indispensable. —Steven Cherry ones on a phone are the same as on the Web—merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com. the Dictionary.com app is free and http://i.word.com comes with a companion thesaurus. http://dictionary.reference.com/apps/iphone

24 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org time teller: your other do-it-yourself computer projects will know what time it is if you add a single-board computer, such as this one, from tuxgraphics. it uses the Network time protocol to get continual updates from authoritative time servers on the internet. Photos: James turner sells several; the one typically used with a home will try to connect through software installed and burn I got cost €40.50 ($53.58). network. You’re going to the gateway you defined the program onto the device. Essentially, it’s a USB cable edit the main.c file, changing to the NTP server. Then The final product is a with a processor built into the IP address of the device, it’ll start displaying the plain black box that tells me it on one end and a 5-pin as well as the IP address of current time on the LCD, what time it is, as long as connector on the other your gateway, the IP address syncing with the server I have a network connection end that plugs into the of the NTP server you want once every hour after that. handy. It also will provide SBC. The programmer also to use, and your time zone. For me, the hardest the same data if I point a comes with a LiveCD of a With these edits made, you part of the project was the browser at the IP address of Linux distribution prebuilt use the “make” command soldering. All told, it took the device. While the project to program the SBC. to build a hex file with the about 3 hours (and several was interesting for its own If you don’t feel like compiled code, and then the trips to RadioShack) over sake, I’m looking forward booting up Linux every time avrdude command to write it the course of a week or so to seeing what else I can do you want to program the out to the SBC, which needs to to get everything hooked with a network-capable SBC device, the kit also comes be powered up and connected up. Once the programming in a box, because I can burn with a version of GCC by the programmer cable. cable came, it was another onto it whatever software (GNU Compiler Collection) Once installed, the program 2 hours to get all the I care to write. —James Turner that runs on your regular desktop and compiles for the ATmega168 instruction books puzzles by the drawerful set, together with the AVR so why did the chicken cross the möbius strip? Downloader/Uploader professor there’s a lot to be said for a book that transports you back to your (AVRDUDE), a tool that can stewart’s cabinet of mathematical childhood. When i was 11, i was given a subscription to Scientific communicate with various curiosities American. Every month, i would turn directly to martin Gardner’s programming peripherals By Ian Stewart; Basic Books, mathematical Games column, which Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of (including the USB cable 2008; 256 pp.; US $16.95; Mathematical Curiosities immediately brings to mind. I had bought), so that you ISBN: 978-0-465-01302-9 Open one of the 179 “drawers” in professor Stewart’s cabinet, and you might find just a one-liner (“Why did the chicken cross the can program directly on möbius band?”) or a seven-page essay on Fermat’s last theorem. the device. The CD includes many items, like how to find a fake coin in three weighings and precompiled versions of a cantor’s diagonal argument, are likely to be familiar friends, but test program that flashes plenty of others will be new. And Stewart has put a sheen on some of the oldies—langton’s ant, for example, in which the eponymous the LED and displays an OK insect travels around a checkerboard according to simple rules. message on the LCD, a good i hadn’t imagined some of the strategies that might somehow trap it. initial smoke test to ensure i’m not keen on the book’s shaggy-dog stories nor on its you didn’t fry anything. biographies of famous people (do Americans know who Virginia The disk also includes a Wade and carol Vorderman are?). But those parts of the book are more than offset by a variety of knots, magic hexagons, square copy of the NTP application wheels, and topology tricks in which you pretend to slice off your ready to run, but you’ll finger. Answers (but not, unfortunately, a proof of the Goldbach probably need to make conjecture) are to be found at the back of the book, and many have some changes—it’s preset urls for further information. the book can be devoured in one giant gulp or savored, one for a 10.0.0.0 class A subnet, curiosity at a time. As for the mathematics, the puzzles require which is ideal for General at most a bit of algebra. many should be within the grasp of an Electric or MIT but not intelligent 11-year-old. —Clive Feather www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 25 tools & toys

IntelliTouch Eos Wireless US $250 and up http://www.eoswireless.com

to run downstairs. That makes Eos more like an iPod dock than a true multichannel multiroom system. But the multiroom feature was a huge boon when my family didn’t want to interrupt its weekend chores, in and out of the house, for the Obama inauguration concert. I repositioned the four speakers into critical areas, including one out on the front porch and one in the backyard. Eos saved that day. I do have a few quibbles. The power adapter design is conceptually clever: It looks like it’s built into the speaker, so you can plug the speaker directly into the wall, but you can also pop the big house, speakers are about $130 each. adapter out of the speaker, revealing a Eos, of course, does not do as cord you can plug into a less accessible cheap audio much as Sonos. It doesn’t connect outlet or power strip. Fabulous idea, the eos multiroom sound to online music services without a but the implementation wasn’t so system isn’t slick, but it won’t computer. Nor can it send different successful. One of the power supply stress your budget audio to different rooms. It is, however, slots was jammed shut, so I couldn’t unbelievably easy to set up. I put the use that speaker on a tabletop; it had or several years now I’ve base station and four speakers in five to stay with the wall outlet. Another had Sonos envy. Several of my different rooms, and the only hard speaker had the opposite problem: Ffriends own these high-end thing was finding available outlets. The spring door was broken, so multiroom audio systems; when The sound quality was comparable I could use it only with the cord out. dinner-party conversation lags, we to that of most iPod docking systems, Admittedly, these were press loaner pass the handheld controller around but it was better than most when units that had likely taken some abuse. the table to play memorable songs and I installed one of the speaker units Also, there was a slight delay reminisce. (Okay, a bit strange, but this in the same room as the base station, between turning on a remote speaker is Silicon Valley.) Unfortunately, Sonos for an improved stereo effect. (Each and getting sound out of it. Now, I know systems are complicated and costly: speaker has 2.1 surround sound and there has to be a delay. But every time Just the starter pack, with the wireless a subwoofer.) The advertised range is I turned a speaker on, I found that I’d controller and boxes to hook up two 50 meters; my house isn’t quite that big, keep dialing up the volume, thinking rooms, sets you back US $1000, and but a speaker placed outside, plugged that I wasn’t hearing the music because that’s without speakers. into a garage outlet, worked fine. it was turned down too low. By the So when I heard that a company Eos broadcasts in the 2.4-gigahertz time the signal kicked in, the sound named IntelliTouch, in San Diego, frequency band, right in there with would be so loud that it was painful. would soon offer a low-cost multiroom cordless phones, microwave ovens, Would I buy Eos? Probably not as audio system called Eos, I was excited. and Wi-Fi. But it uses a proprietary a multiroom audio system—not until “Low” is a relative term, of course. spread spectrum, frequency-hopping the remote works without line of sight. The Eos Wireless starter pack—a base technology that the company Would I buy Eos if I was shopping for station, a remote speaker unit, an audio says prevents interference—and an iPod dock? Definitely. Its price is cable for hooking up other components, indeed, I didn’t experience any. competitive in that market, and being and a remote—lists for $250 but sells The Eos remote controller works able to move speakers around or easily for as low as $150. (The controller is only on a line of sight from the base set up an indoor/outdoor sound system built into the speaker.) Additional station, so to change a song I have is a great bonus. —Tekla S. Perry

26 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org reflections By­­roBert­­w.­­lucky

trol, pretending that no effects against the incalculable ­­wicked­­ propagate beyond this box. cost of failing, even once, to Perhaps all real prevent an airline disaster. engineering problems are To make matters worse, we problems in some sense wicked, but understand only poorly the many critical problems in motivations and plans of potential hijackers. And as ome problems in almost all such problems, have such complex there is an overriding Ssocial, economic, or question—if we didn’t spend organizational interactions the money here, where that they can’t be solved fully. might it be better used? They’ve become popularly On the other hand, what known as “wicked problems.” would be the costs to society I’m not fond of these if the public at large lost problems, though I’ve seen confidence in air safety and my share of them—they seem stopped flying altogether? to be ubiquitous in systems- Problems in allocating engineering design. However, defense acquisition funds I’m fascinated with the name. are similarly wicked. For It reminds me of “fuzzy logic,” example, what are the costs a brilliant and oxymoronic and benefits of improving phrase that juxtaposes an the surveillance capabilities adjective connoting warmth of drone aircraft versus and softness with a noun investing in satellite that implies something cold technology? Each promises and mechanical. In “wicked better intelligence, but what is problem,” an adjective a pound of intelligence worth? meaning evil or sinful, Isn’t the ultimate objective usually assigned to humans, to win the war? But what is attached to an abstract, This surely is the mother of all government may be especially war did you have in mind? inert noun. The name wicked problems. As many so. Consider airport security. And what did you mean by suggests that the problem readers of The Hitchhiker’s Every time I take off my “win”? The unanswerable itself is consciously malicious. Guide to the Galaxy know, shoes and walk through questions ascend into the It knows that someone is out after long consideration that strange freestanding skies, far above your pay there working on it, and it the computer returns the doorway, I think there must grade, whatever it may be. is going to stop that person answer “42.” We sometimes be a better way. But we Because such problems from getting anywhere. give similar oversimplified lack the data needed for an are wickedly unsolvable, the Wicked problems are solutions to problems engineering solution. We can practice is to set immutable unsolvable not because they that are, well, wicked. try to calculate the costs and specifications for the con- are mathematically difficult Invoking another benefits: We know the salary stituent subsystems, leaving but because we can’t define evocative name from modern and equipment expenses, little opportunity to trade them well enough to quantify physics, wicked problems and we can measure the off cost, performance, and things. We don’t encounter demonstrate entanglement: probabilities of missed scheduling parameters— such problems in our What we do here influences detection and false alarms. and leaving equally little engineering education, where something else way over there But the true cost of the system room for the analytical and all the exercises have solution in some mysterious way that should include the lost time, methodical approach that is paths, usually to precise we don’t fully understand. uncertainty, and aggravation the essence of engineering.

MGM/THE KOBALCOLLECTION MGM/THE numerical answers. If only When the ramifications of of millions of airline Wicked problems will the real world were always our design extend beyond passengers, as well as the never be solved in the con- so obliging! I am reminded our organizational, knowl- lost revenue from would-be ventional sense, but we of Douglas Adams’s famous edge, technical, or authority passengers who are thus engineers should do our fictional supercomputer built boundaries, we partition the discouraged from traveling, best to bring this kind of to answer the one question: problem and draw a virtual and so forth. These costs thought to any problem, be “What is the meaning of life?” box around the part we con- would have to be weighed it wicked or not. o

www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • IEEE SpEctrum • NA 27 28 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org Ray Guns Get Real Cheap rockets fired by insurgents are taking a deadly toll in the Middle East. Can a new generation of solid- state lasers blow them out of the sky? By JEff HECHt

ockets, mortars, and other forms of artillery have a long and grim history on the battlefield. In a conventional war, an army being bombarded by these from afar can R respond by firing back at the attacker’s battery. But you can’t turn the massive fire- power of modern armies onto insurgents hiding among civilian populations without court- ing disaster. Instead of striking the enemy, who run to other hiding spots after firing their weapons, such retaliation would mostly hit civilians. What the U.S. military dearly wants is a weapon that can aser weapons, like flying cars, have defend against such attacks more selectively, shooting down L been demonstrated many times, but in explosive-laden projectiles in the air before they reach their tar- the real world their problems have always gets. The armament should be easy to field and should strike outweighed their benefits—literally. Weight at the speed of light, but it should not send streams of bullets cripples laser weapons and flying cars alike. screaming toward the horizon. In short, the military wants a Most experimental laser weapons have been laser weapon that’s small and rugged but powerful enough to so big and heavy that cynical observers have ignite explosive payloads on incoming projectiles while they’re joked that their only conceivable combat still a safe distance away. use would be to drop them on the enemy. It’s a bold vision for laser defense, bolstered by a dramatic That’s because the size of a laser weapon technology demonstration that didn’t make Page One: For five is inversely related to its efficiency—and solid minutes in March, an electrically powered solid-state laser laser efficiencies can be pretty dismal. pumped out 100 kilowatts of infrared light, the first of its kind to The red helium-neon gas laser long used make “weapons class.” for classroom demonstrations turned only Each armed service has its own plans for that technology. The 0.01 to 0.1 percent of electrical power input U.S. Army and its Israeli allies want truck-mounted lasers to zap into light. The diode lasers used in today’s short-range rockets on the battlefield or border. The U.S. Air inexpensive laser pointer do much better, Force wants compact lasers for fighter jets. The Navy wants to converting about 10 percent of the electri- defend ships against attacks. And research efforts in China and cal energy they draw from their batteries Russia have been reported as far back as 1995. into light. The rest is lost as heat. This is And yet, laser weapon R&D is celebrating its 50th birthday this no big deal for a milliwatt-power laser year without much to show for it. In fact, in early April the U.S. pointer, because the heat generated is neg- Defense Department shelved plans to buy a fleet of 747s to house ligible. But it’s a thorny problem for a laser giant gas-filled antimissile lasers. The old technology was prov- weapon. At 10 percent efficiency, it would ing too bulky and underpowered to blow North Korean missiles take 1 megawatt to generate a 100-kilowatt out of the sky without flying within antiaircraft range. laser beam, leaving 900 kW as heat that High-energy laser research is at an inflection point. Powered must be dissipated somehow.

dan page dan by semiconductors, a new generation of lasers promises new But that didn’t stop the U.S. Missile opportunities—and presents a whole new batch of problems. Defense Agency from building a mega-

www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 29 watt laser. To achieve a 1-MW beam with 10 percent efficiency would require a whop- LASER TAG: Earlier this ping 10 MW of input energy and produce year, Northrop Grumman researchers far overshot a hefty 9 MW of waste heat. Nevertheless, the 25-kilowatt goal of the later this year a beast with such power, Joint High Powered called the Airborne Laser (ABL), will be Solid State Laser put to the test of blasting dummy nuclear program by missiles from the sky. sustaining a 105-kW beam for more Here’s how. ABL is the latest example in than five minutes. a class of high-energy lasers called flowing- Photo: NorthroP GrummaN gas lasers. They are powered by burn- ing chemical fuels like those that drive rocket engines. Hot molecules in the gas emit a cascade of light emissions, produc- ing a powerful laser beam. Rocket-engine lasers have generated infrared beams that can reach a couple of megawatts for a few seconds at a time. The technology used in ABL can turn more than 20 percent of the combustion energy into laser light in the laboratory, but ABL’s efficiency is undis- closed. In such a laser, the exhaust gas car- ries away the energy left behind as heat. But so far the US $5 billion ABL can barely squeeze into a Boeing 747. The laser is completely unsuited to the battlefield. It’s being designed to destroy long-range missiles rising through the atmosphere a couple of hundred kilometers away, but it’s vastly overpowered for the compara- tively easy job of hitting slow-moving mor- tar shells only a kilometer or two away. It would be like shooting deer with a cannon. So in 1996 the U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense teamed up to test smaller lasers against mortars and rockets. For that task, they tapped Redondo Beach, Calif.–based aerospace contractor TRW (acquired by Northrop Grumman Corp. in THEL would be useless without its special since the Vietnam War, but they are just 2002) to build a 100-kilowatt-class flowing- fuels, and it also produced toxic, corro- glorified laser pointers: The low-power gas laser, a compact version of ABL. sive hydrogen fluoride gas, which would beams mark targets with invisible infra- The result, called the Tactical High- require special handling. “A chemical red spots, which allow smart bombs to Energy Laser (THEL), made laser laser on a battlefield is more of a hazard home in. Such lasers could probably kill defense look promising. In 2000, it shot than the threat it is trying to mitigate,” a fly, but nothing bigger. down a short-range Katyusha rocket over says John Boness, chief technologist at The first laser ever built was also solid the White Sands Missile Range in New Textron Systems, a laser-weapons con- state. It used bright pulses from a flash- Mexico. But by 2004 the United States tractor in Wilmington, Mass. lamp (which creates an intense white and Israel agreed THEL wasn’t up to the The U.S. Army and Israel had their light) to illuminate a stubby ruby rod. job, ending any further tests. sights set on something more nimble that The flashes excited chromium atoms in One problem with THEL was its large could fit on an armored vehicle the size the ruby, which prompted the atoms to footprint. It required several trailer-size of a motor home and that would be ready release their energy as red photons in a containers; outdoor tanks filled with to roll when it arrived on the battlefield. laser beam. exotic chemical fuels and the “exhausted” John Wachs, chief of the directed-energy Modern solid-state lasers are powered chemicals that had fed the reaction (which division at the Army Space and Missile in the same general way—light from an would need to be protected from enemy Defense Command, in Huntsville, Ala., external source transfers energy to the fire or sabotage); and a platform-mounted explains the ultimate result of that con- atoms in a crystal, and these emit laser apparatus called a beam director, similar clusion: “The Army decided they would light. But instead of ruby rods, engineers in size and shape to a big sky-scanning prefer solid-state, all-electric devices.” have developed lasers that use more searchlight. But the real killer for field sophisticated crystals doped with a rare- commanders was the logistical night- olid-state lasers are far simpler earth element called neodymium. These mare they envisioned. Aside from its Sthan their flowing-gas cousins. Small simple, durable lasers are used widely in bulk, characteristic of flowing-gas lasers, versions have been in the U.S. arsenal industry and the military.

30 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org - - - 3131

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Zeus went on to field trials. At Bagram At trials. field to on went Zeus A soldier operating Zeus would use rounds in one particularly success

soldier would then switch on the high- sight. lineof thein clearly stationaryand six deeper, through the case and finallythroughand case the into deeper, destroy unexploded ordnance exposed as if were it sunlight focused paper. onto grow in size as the laser’s heat penetrated penetrated heat laser’s the as size in grow end with, well, a bang.with, a well, end on the ground. They named the test sys human the to invisible beam, laser energy eye because of its 1-micrometer infrared emitted only a kilowatt—small potatoes by laser-weapon standards. Although the the Although standards. laser-weapon by it skin, exposed burn can uses Zeus beam bullet. But the targets were easy ones, target, the on heated it zone the was beam begin to glow as Zeus heated the cas the explosive payload. The show would tem Zeus, after the thunderbolt-wielding thunderbolt-wielding the after Zeus, tem on pointer laser green a train to turret the Humvee unarmored the With target. the far enough to keep out of danger—the ing. The steadily brightening spot would would spot brightening steadily The ing. more than 200 rounds of ordnance in parked between 25 and 250 meters away— meters 250 and 25 between parked its Huntsville location, before shipping ordinaryan as deadly as near nowhere is ignited by the heat, the only trace of the infrared camera, you’d see a small spot 51 king the of Greek gods. particles dust of sparkles thanOtherthe Zeus to Afghanistan in 2003 for field tests, tests, field for 2003 in Afghanistan to Zeus If you were viewing the target with an wavelength. The laser Sparta installed at at installedSparta laser The wavelength. with a turret-mounted solid-state laser to to laser solid-state turret-mounted a with Air Base in Afghanistan, Zeus destroyed Air destroyed in Afghanistan, Zeus Base ------kW kW

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RES i Competing solid-state laser weapon designs reflect so much of their light is never absorbed seem like a waste time. of strict heat limits of this material even develop high-energy solid-state lasers don’t dissipate heat well, so trying to a laser beam. Solid-state laser and converted into laser energy. laser into converted and at most just a few percent of the electri different philosophies efficient. Like light-emitting diodes, diode diode diodes, light-emitting Like efficient. conductor diode lasers. Both tools for on the target. Add even more heat and crank up the laser output too much will cal energy from a flashlamp makes it into into it makes flashlamp a from energy cal border of two different semiconductor by a negligible amount causes inter trons become attached to atoms at the the laser. But the diode laser is far more the rod can crack or shatter. For decades, For shatter. or crackcan rod the this combination of low efficiency and input electricity into light—light that’s lim that’s light—light into electricity input a narrowto ited range wave desirable of materials. Thanks to strategically placed placed strategically to Thanks materials. more much convert lasers diode mirrors, processes, with electrical first input con powering solid-state lasers use two-stage two-stage use lasers solid-state powering replacing the old flashlamps with semi poor heat dissipation made attempts to ity, which means it won’t focus tightly nal stress and degrades the beam qual

me up me beam half electricity the input light, and a into lengths. Contrast that with flashlamps, lasers generate light when mobile elec beam with seven amplifiers. with seven beam beam, which can which can beam, a 105-kW into be combined Firestrike a 15-kW generates Each of Northrop of Northrop Each Grumman’s no f www.spectrum.ieee.orgwww.spectrum.ieee.org which give off energy across the entire warm the crystal rod. Exceeding the visible spectrum, the main reason why verted into light and the light powering

illustrations: steVe stanKieWiCZ; photo: laWrenCe liVermore national lab ful 100-minute span. The Army was impressed: Zeus wasn’t powerful enough tHEL to destroy buried mines or munitions, but laseR the tactical High- it was small enough to be mobile, and it Energy laser, a joint could take on improvised explosive project between devices—Iraq’s famously deadly IEDs— weapons israel and the if they were not buried under sand. the path to a deployable united States, was laser weapon is littered with designed to shoot down short-range rockets. o tackle the problem of scaling up the canceled projects tpower of a solid-state laser to compen- sate for distance, in December 2002 the U.S. military launched a grand challenge zEUS called the Joint High Power Solid State Laser Sparta’s Zeus (JHPSSL). The Army’s goal was a 100-kW system was a turret-mounted electrically powered laser that it could use solid-state laser abL for distant battlefield targets. The Air Force on a Humvee the Airborne laser, which is uS $4 billion wanted a similar laser for its F-35 Joint Strike that destroyed over budget and can barely fit into a Fighter, and the Navy hoped such a laser unexploded ordnance from a safe retrofitted 747, is designed to destroy distance. it was the first solid-state long-range missiles a few hundred could fend off small-boat attacks like the weapon success story. kilometers away. 2000 suicide bombing that killed 17 sailors and seriously damaged the USS Cole. Field commanders insisted that the laser not heat as exhaust, solid-state lasers need material. The second is to amplify the require any special power systems, so it had another way to keep from frying. beam by passing it through a more- to run on electricity from the diesel genera- Lawrence Livermore had already excited laser material without mirrors. tors that run other front-line equipment. developed a clever but elaborate way to Northrop Grumman chose the latter The first step was a competition to deal with the problem, resulting in what’s method—amplification. The output of a reach 25 kW by late 2005 between four known as a solid-state heat-capacity laser. single oscillator was split between two entrants: Northrop Grumman, Textron, Several ceramic laser slabs, 10 cm square amplifiers to generate a total of 27 kW for Raytheon, and Lawrence Livermore and 2 cm thick, are mounted on four 350 seconds, longer than JHPSSL’s stated National Laboratory. The 25-kW output rotating wheels. For 10-second intervals, 300-second goal. For the 100-kW demon- beam needed to remain tightly focused for arrays of pump diodes fire 200 pulses per stration, Northrop redesigned the ampli- 300 seconds while ensuring that the laser second into the edges of the slabs. During fiers so that each generated 15 kW and didn’t self-destruct. The basic approach those 10 seconds, the slabs heat from room fit onto a table 1 meter square. Reaching was clear—use diode lasers (here acting temperature to 130 ˚C, at which point the 100 kW required splitting the oscillator as what laser physicists call pump diodes) pumping stops for a quarter of a second as output among seven amplifiers, then care- to inject light into thin slabs of laser mate- fresh slabs are rotated into place and the fully matching the phases of the waves rial containing neodymium atoms, which hot ones are pressed between heat sinks coming out of each in the final beam. in turn emit light at 1.06 µm in the near to cool. Then the cycle repeats. In March of this year Northrop infrared. The pump beam passes through This design was an ingenious solution Grumman crossed the finish line, gener- the slab and excites the atoms to produce to the cooling problem, and the Lawrence ating a single 105-kW beam for more than high-output energy, and the heat can dis- Livermore laser reached 25 kW. But the 5 minutes and turning 19.3 percent of the sipate through the wide top and bottom. lab didn’t make the cut for the 100-kW input electrical power into output photons. Cooling is a critical issue, because round of JHPSSL. Instead, the Army The company’s JHPSSL test bed weighed solid-state lasers convert only about chose two other designs, from Northrop in at 7 metric tons and measured 2 by 2 by 20 percent of their electrical input energy Grumman and from Textron Systems. 2.7 meters, but Northrop Grumman engi- into light output. Again, that may be good Rather than moving the slabs, both neers have also developed a compact ver- by laser standards, but it still means that designs used liquid coolant and heat sion called Firestrike. Its 15-kW amplifier 80 percent of the input energy winds up exchangers to keep the slab temperatures modules fit into field-ready boxes measur- as heat—four watts of heat for every watt uniform. The big difference between the ing 30.5 by 58.4 by 101.6 cm, and seven of in the output beam. Much of that heat Northrop Grumman and Textron sys- them stack to make a 100-kW weapon that goes into the laser slab. The results of tems was in the optical layout. will weigh only a quarter as much as the sending a laser beam through a hot slab To appreciate how different these test bed. That includes power supply and are similar to what happens when you designs were, you need to understand cooling equipment but not the electronics park your car in an open lot on a summer that a laser is an oscillator with photons that adjust the output phases and direct CZ day. Just as the rising air currents bend bouncing back and forth between a pair the combined beam toward the target. i W ie

the light over the hood, making it ripple of mirrors. Those photons stimulate the Textron avoids the problem of com- K

and waver, uneven heating in a slab will laser crystal to emit more photons of the bining beams by building one big oscil- stan

e break up or spread a laser beam. The far- same wavelength and phase, which is to lator. “We have a single beam running V ther the beam has to travel in these con- say that their electric and magnetic fields through six slab modules in series,” says ste ditions, the more it will spread and the oscillate in lockstep. There are two ways Textron’s John Boness, who oversees the less damage it can do. And while rocket- to boost laser power: The first is just to company’s laser program. The light fol-

engine lasers can blow away their waste build a bigger oscillator with more laser lows a zigzag path through the water- illustrations:

32 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org cooled slabs, passing through more laser light-guiding cores that transmit the tinually point out the need for a defense material and collecting more light than if light are small and can carry only a lim- against rockets, artillery, and mortars. it had traveled in a straight line. ited amount of light before photon inter- And tests have shown that such targets Meanwhile, DARPA has its own pro- actions steal energy from the beam. By are vulnerable to laser heating. Solid-state gram for a slab-laser weapon, called the spreading the power over a wide range of lasers are far more practical for battlefield High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense wavelengths, an industrial fiber manu- use than scaled-down versions of ABL. System (HELLADS). Using an arcane facturer, IPG Photonics Corp., in Oxford, On the other hand, a panel of design from General Atomics in which Mass., has reached 6.5 kW with a 10-µm- experts convened by the National some of the light passes through the cool- wide core. Fiber lasers with larger cores Research Council warned the Army last ant, developers are gunning for a 150-kW can reach higher powers—50 kW—but September that high-energy solid-state laser weapon weighing only 750 kilograms. with poorer beam quality. lasers were not yet ready for battle. And At only 5 kilograms per kilowatt, the However, some experts question these experts also urged the Army to HELLADS laser module would require whether 100 kW is essential. “It’s an urban push beyond 100 kW to demonstrate a only 40 percent of the weight of Northrop legend that if you can’t get to 100 kilowatts, 400-kW laser, which they expect to be a Grumman’s Firestrike for each kilowatt you won’t have utility,” says Mike Booen, more potent weapon, by 2018. of output, meaning that HELLADS could vice president of advanced missile THEL showed that a laser beam can actually work aboard a fighter jet. defense and directed-energy weapons for destroy rockets, missiles, and artillery, but Yet it’s a long way from there to deliv- Raytheon Missile Systems. Even a sin- success depends on atmospheric effects ering a weapon that can blow enemy gle industrial fiber laser delivering tens and target interactions as well as raw rockets out of the sky. The Army must of kilowatts can be of some military use. power, and those factors depend on wave- test a 100-kW beam against realistic tar- “In 2006 we blew up two 60-millimeter length. With solid-state lasers emitting at gets, and developers must build compact mortars at a little over 500 meters” with a 1 µm, far from the proven 3.8-µm wave- versions for field use. 20-kilowatt commercial laser, he says. length of THEL, the Army’s upcoming Indeed, Raytheon has integrated a test shots with a 100-kW solid-state laser hy didn’t Zeus make the cut for 50-kW commercial fiber laser into a cus- are therefore essential. But controlled tests w JHPSSL? In Zeus, and in many tomized version of its Phalanx Gatling alone won’t demonstrate military effec- industrial lasers, the light-emitting mate- gun. It’s a brute-force laser with a lot of tiveness. The battlefield is a harsh environ- rial is a special type of optical fiber in which power and a mediocre beam. But it’s also ment, says Philip Coyle, senior adviser at a central core containing light-emitting rugged. Raytheon wanted a laser reliable the Center for Defense Information and a atoms is surrounded by a layer that guides and robust enough to put in a real war- former director of testing for the Pentagon, the pump light along the fiber. This design fighting environment, Booen says, “and and no laser systems “are ready for realis- can convert up to 30 percent of the input not have guys in white coats running tic operational testing.” power to laser output. Fiber lasers are able around and coaxing it to work.” So far, Missile defense may be an appeal- to run 24/7 on production lines. Booen is happy with this laser’s operation: ing idea, but “it is virtually impossible to For these reasons, fiber lasers have “You push a button and it comes on.” build defensive laser systems that are cost- been getting a lot of attention. Their higher Boeing has also tested a kilowatt- effective,” says Coyle. He says the key ques- efficiency promises smaller and more por- class industrial laser in its own multirole tion is whether it is cheaper for the Army table lasers, and perhaps most important, weapon system, the Humvee-mounted to improve its defenses or for the enemy to fibers have larger surface areas than do Avenger. Lee Gutheinz, who directs the overwhelm them with more missiles. slabs, making them easier to cool. high-energy laser program at Boeing Nonetheless, the Pentagon thinks solid- Part of the efficiency advantage comes Missile Defense Systems, believes that state lasers have a better shot at short- from the fiber structure itself, which the compact size and inherent rugged- range missiles on the battlefield than the increases the fraction of the pump light ness of fiber lasers makes them attrac- Airborne Laser has for long-range missile absorbed. Fiber lasers are more rug- tive for small mobile platforms like a defense. In early April U.S. Secretary of ged than slabs because they don’t have Humvee. But he can’t see how to reach Defense Robert Gates announced plans to send their light through discrete opti- the 100-kW level. “Extending the capa- to downshift development of ABL, say- cal components, which can drift out of bility of fiber lasers at reasonable per- ing that its “affordability and technol- alignment. Their toughness has made formance above tens of kilowatts hurts ogy problems” made the program’s them a winner in industry and piqued my head,” he says. “I don’t want to say it operational role “highly questionable.” the interest of DARPA. can’t be done, but it’s very hard.” ABL will likely not be scrapped entirely But fiber lasers have their own limits. but will stay in an indefinite R&D phase. A single fiber laser can’t combine high ill solid-state laser weapons be So for that laser weapon at least, the flying- power and high beam quality, and no w like flying cars that never get off the car question seems destined to remain single-fiber laser can reach 100 kW. The ground? On one hand, grim headlines con- open for a long time. o

to pRobE fURtHER read the military fact sheet for the ieee.org/energy/nuclear/starcrossed. An abbreviated version Airborne laser at http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/pdf/laser.pdf. of the National research council’s report, “Directed Energy An IEEE Spectrum feature in 2005 outlined the government’s technology for countering rockets, Artillery, and mortars proposed plans for space-based missile defense using (rAm)” is available at http://books.nap.edu/catalog. directed energy. the article is available at http://spectrum. php?record_id=12008.

www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 33 A radical

New

RouteR masteR: internet pioneer lawrence G. roberts has reengineered the network router to handle streaming media.

34 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org oNe of the fouNders of the iNterNet sAys Network routers Are too slow, costly, ANd power huNgry— ANd he kNows how to fix them

By lAwrENcE G. roBErtS

router

www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 35 The Internet is broken. I should know: I designed it. In 1967, I wrote the first plan for the ancestor of today’s Internet, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, or ARPANET, and then led the team that designed and built it. The main idea was to share the available network infra- structure by sending data as small, independent packets, which, though they might arrive at different times, would still generally make it to their destinations. The small computers that directed the data traffic—I called them Interface Message Processors, or IMPs—evolved into today’s routers, and for a long time they’ve kept up with the Net’s phenomenal growth. Until now.

Today Internet traffic is rapidly expanding and also becom- but also to iPhones and BlackBerrys, media receivers like the ing more varied and complex. In particular, we’re seeing an Apple TV, and gaming consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox and explosion in voice and video applications. Millions regularly Sony’s PlayStation 3. Communication and entertainment are prague/redux use Skype to place calls and go to YouTube to share videos. shifting to the Net. s Services like Hulu and Netflix, which let users watch TV But this shift is not without its problems. Unlike e-mail and shows and movies on their computers, are growing ever more static Web pages, which can handle network hiccups, voice popular. Corporations are embracing videoconferencing and and video deteriorate under transmission delays as short as telephony systems based on the Internet Protocol, or IP. What’s a few milliseconds. And therein lies the problem with tradi-

more, people are now streaming content not only to their PCs tional IP packet routers: They can’t guarantee that a YouTube Jonathan all photos:

36 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org clip will stream smoothly to a user’s computer. They treat the transmission. This self-controlling behavior is a critical fea- video packets as loose data entities when they ought to treat ture of the Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, the primary them as flows. protocol we rely on with the Internet. It’s kept the network sta- Consider a conventional router receiving two packets that ble over decades. are part of the same video. The router looks at the first packet’s Indeed, during most of my career as a network engineer, destination address and consults a routing table. It then holds I never guessed that the queuing and discarding of packets the packet in a queue until it can be dispatched. When the in routers would create serious problems. More recently, router receives the second packet, it repeats those same steps, though, as my Anagran colleagues and I scrutinized routers not “remembering” that it has just processed an earlier piece during peak workloads, we spotted two serious problems. of the same video. The addition of these small tasks may not First, routers discard packets somewhat randomly, caus- look like much, but they can quickly add up, making networks ing some transmissions to stall. Second, the packets that are more costly and less flexible. queued because of momentary overloads experience substan- At this point you might be asking yourself, “But what’s the tial and nonuniform delays, significantly reducing through- problem, really, if I use things like Skype and YouTube with- put (TCP throughput is inversely proportional to delay). These out a hitch?” In fact, you enjoy those services only because the two effects hinder traffic for all applications, and some trans- Internet has been grossly overprovisioned. Network opera- missions can take 10 times as long as others to complete. tors have deployed mountains of optical communication sys- As I talk to network operators all over the world, I hear tems that can handle traffic spikes, but on average these run one story after another about how the problem is only getting much below their full capacity. Worse, peer-to-peer (P2P) ser- worse. Data traffic has been doubling virtually every year since vices, used to download movies and other large files, are eating 1970. Thanks to the development of high-capacity optical sys- more and more bandwidth. P2P participants may constitute tems like dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM), band- only 5 percent of the users in some networks, while consum- width cost has been halved every year, so operators don’t have ing 75 percent of the bandwidth. to spend more than they did the year before to keep up with So although users may not perceive the extent of the prob- the doubling in traffic. On the other hand, routers, as pieces lem, things are already dire for many Internet service pro- of computing equipment, have followed Moore’s Law, and the viders and network operators. Keeping up with bandwidth cost of routing 1 megabit per second has decreased at a slower demand has required huge outlays of cash to build an infra- pace, halving every 1.5 years. Without a major change in router structure that remains underutilized. To put it another way, design, this cost discrepancy means that every three years a we’ve thrown bandwidth at a problem that really requires a network operator will have to double its spending on infra- computing solution. structure expansion. With these issues in mind, my colleagues and I at Anagran, a start-up I founded in Sunnyvale, Calif., set out to reinvent the FlOW mANAgEmENT can solve this capacity crunch. The router. We focused on a simple yet powerful idea: If a router concept of data flow might be more easily understood in the can identify the first packet in a flow, it can just prescreen case of a voice or video stream, but it applies to all traffic over the remaining packets and bypass the routing and queuing the Internet. Key to our approach is the fact that each packet stages. This approach would boost throughput, reduce packet contains a full identification of the flow it belongs to. This iden- loss and delays, allow new capabilities like fairness controls— tification, encapsulated by the packet’s header according to the and while we’re at it, save power, size, and cost. We call our Internet Protocol version 4, or IPv4, consists of five values: approach flow management. source address, source port, destination address, destination port, and protocol. TO UNDERSTAND HOW flow management works, it helps to All packets that are part of the same flow carry the same describe the limitations of current packet routers. In these sys- five-value identification. So in flow management, you have to tems, incoming packets go first to a collection of custom micro- effectively process—or route—only the first packet. You’d then chips responsible for the routing work. The chips read each take the routing parameters that apply to that first packet and packet’s destination address and query a routing table. This store them in a hash table, a data structure that allows for fast table determines the packet’s next hop as it travels through the lookup. When a new packet comes in, you’d check if its iden- network. Then another collection of chips puts the packets into output queues where they await trans- mission. These two groups of chips—they include application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, as well as expensive high-speed memory such as ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) and static random access memory (SRAM)—consume 80 percent of the power and space in a router. During periods of peak traffic, a router may be swamped with more packets than it can han- dle. The router will then pile up more packets in its queue, establishing a buffer that it can dis- charge when traffic slows down. If the buffer fills up, though, the router will have to discard some packets. The lost packets trigger a control mech- Flow contRol: the Anagran Fr-1000 can be plugged into existing anism that tells the originator to slow down its networks and can manage up to 4 million simultaneous flows. www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 37 How Flow routiNG workS Flow managers keep track of streams of packets and can protect voice and video transmissions while reducing peer-to-peer traffic.

CONVENTIONAl ROUTER

Input Routing engine Output

Queue manager

Peer to peer

Packet Web

Voice/video Discarded The routing engine reads each packets The transmitted packets often packet’s destination address and 1 experience substantial and performs a table lookup to determine 3 nonuniform delays, and the router is where to send the packet. unable to control specific types of traffic. The queue manager buffers packets 2 as they await transmission. If there’s congestion, it randomly discards packets to reduce throughput.

FlOW mANAgER

Input Flow engine Output

Hash table Hash

Discarded The flow engine uses a hash packets The output provides feedback 1 function to convert each packet’s 4 to the flow engine. If there’s header into a sequence of bits that Routing engine bandwidth available, it increases the uniquely identifies a flow. If the flow flow rates or accepts more flows; if exists in the hash table, the packet bandwidth is limited, it reduces flows. goes directly to the output. If the hash table has no record of the flow, the routing engine The flow engine keeps track 3 determines where the packet should of each flow’s duration and 2 go. The hash table is updated with the throughput to identify its type. It new flow, so subsequent packets can can selectively discard packets to bypass the routing engine. protect Web, voice, and video while limiting peer-to-peer flows. tification is in the hash, and if it is, that means the new packet flow has a steady throughput, which is the case with voice and is part of a flow you’ve already routed. You’d then quickly dis- video, you can avoid discarding such packets, protecting these patch—the more accurate term is “switch”—the packet straight stream-based transmissions. For other types of traffic, such as to an output port, thus saving time and power. Web browsing, you can selectively discard just enough packets If traffic gets too heavy, you’ll still have to discard packets. to achieve specific rates without stalling those transmissions. The big advantage is that now you can do it intelligently. By This capability is especially convenient for managing net- monitoring the packets as they’re coming in, you can track in work overload due to P2P traffic. Conventionally, P2P is filtered real time the duration, throughput, bytes transferred, average out using a technique called deep packet inspection, or DPI,

packet size, and other metrics of every flow. For example, if a which looks at the data portion of all packets. With flow man- cooper emily

38 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org routErS trEAt vidEo pAckEtS AS looSE dAtA ENtitiES wHEN tHEy ouGHt to trEAt tHEm AS FlowS agement, you can detect P2P because it relies on many long- ment allows network operators to reduce their operating costs duration flows per user. Then, without peeking into the packets’ per gigabit per second by a factor of 10. data, you can limit their transmission to rates you deem fair. Measurements of the FR-1000 in our laboratories and by Since the early days of the ARPANET, I’ve always thought customers showed that networks equipped with the flow man- that routers should manage flows rather than individual pack- ager were able to carry many more streams of voice and video ets. Why hasn’t it been done before? The reason is that mem- without quality degradation. ory chips were too expensive until not long ago. You need lots Another important capability we tested was whether the equip- of memory to store the hash table with routing parameters of ment could maintain quality of transmissions during congestion. each flow. (A 1 gigabit-per-second data trunk often carries about The test involved a 100-Mb/s data trunk using a conventional 100 000 flows.) If you were to keep a flow table on one IMP of router and another that included the Anagran flow manager. We 40 years ago, you’d spend US $1 million in memory. But about a progressively added TCP flows and measured the time required decade ago, as memory cost kept falling, it started to make sense to load a specific Web page. The conventional router began to dis- economically to design flow-management equipment. card packets once traffic filled the trunk’s capacity, and the time In 1999, I founded Caspian Networks to develop large terabit to load the Web page increased exponentially as we kept adding flow routers, which I planned to sell to the carriers that main- flows. The Anagran flow manager was able to control the rate of tain the Internet’s core infrastructure. That market, however, the flows, slowing them down to accommodate new ones, and proved hard to crack—the carriers seem satisfied with over- the load time increased only linearly. The result: At 1000 flows, provisioning, as well as techniques like traffic caching and com- the flow manager delivered the page in about 15 seconds, whereas pression, which ameliorate congestion without addressing the the conventional router required nearly 65 seconds. roots of the problem. In early 2004, I decided to leave Caspian Another capability we tested was fairness controls. and start Anagran, focusing on smaller flow-management Currently, P2P applications consume an excessive amount of equipment to solve the overload and fairness problems. We bandwidth, because they use multiple flows per user—from designed the equipment to operate at the edge of networks, 10 to even 1000. But services like cloud computing, which rely the point where an Internet service provider aggregates traffic on Web applications constantly accessing servers that store from its broadband subscribers or where a corporate network and process data, are likely to expand the problem. We con- connects to the outside world. Virtually all network overload ducted measurements at a U.S. university whose wireless net- occurs at the edge. work was overwhelmed by P2P traffic, with a small fraction of users consuming up to 70 percent of the bandwidth. Early ANAgRAN’S FlOW mANAgER, the FR-1000, can replace attempts to solve the problem using DPI systems didn’t work, routers and DPI systems or may simply be added to existing because P2P applications often encrypt packets, making them networks. It supports up to 4 million simultaneous flows— hard to recognize. The Anagran equipment was able to detect a combined 80 Gb/s in throughput. Its hardware consists of inex- P2P by watching the number and duration of flows per user. pensive, off-the-shelf components as opposed to ASICs, which And instead of simply shutting down the P2P connections, the increase development costs. We implemented our flow-routing flow manager adjusted their throughputs to a desired level. algorithms in a field-programmable gate array, or FPGA, and the Once the fairness controls were active, P2P traffic shrank to router’s memory consists of standard high-speed DRAM. The less than 2 percent of the capacity. FR-1000 sells in different models, starting at less than $30 000. The upshot is that directing traffic in terms of flows rather Like a regular router, the FR-1000 has input and output than individual packets improves the utilization of networks. ports. But the similarities end there. Recall that in a traditional By eliminating the excessive delays and random packet losses router the routing and queuing chips consume 80 percent of the typical of traditional routers, flow management fills commu- power and space. By routing only the first packet of a flow, the nication links with more data and protects voice and video FR-1000’s chips do much less work, consuming about 1 percent streams. And it does all that without requiring changes to the of the power that a conventional router requires. time-tested TCP/IP protocol. Even more significant, the FR-1000 does away entirely with So is the Internet really broken? Okay, maybe that was an the queuing chips. During congestion, it adjusts each flow rate exaggeration. But the 40-year-old router sure needs an over- at its input instead. If an incoming flow has a rate deemed too haul. I should know. o high, the equipment discards a single packet to signal the trans- mission to slow down. And rather than just delaying or drop- To Probe FurTher For more technical details on flow man- ping packets as in regular routers, in the FR-1000 the output agement and the Anagran Fr-1000, visit http://www.anagran. provides feedback to the input. If there’s bandwidth available, com. See also the white papers “Flow rate Management” and the equipment increases the flow rates or accepts more flows at “TCP rate Control With IFD [Intelligent Flow Delivery],” avail- the input; if bandwidth is scarce, the router reduces flow rates able at Lawrence G. roberts’s Web site: http://www.packet.cc. or discards packets. For more on Internet routing, visit the Web sites of the By eliminating power-hungry circuitry, the FR-1000 con- Internet research Task Force’s routing research Group at http:// sumes about 300 watts, or one-fifth the total power of a compa- www.irtf.org/charter?gtype=rg&group=rrg and the Internet rable router, and occupies one unit in a standard rack, a tenth engineering Task Force’s routing Area at http://www.ietf.org/ of the space that other routers fill. We estimate that the equip- html.charters/wg-dir.html. www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 39 Germany stumbles in its move GErmANy’S to replace coal and nuclear GrEEN- power with ENErGy offshore GAp wind energy

By Peter Fairley

The six offshore wind Turbines that REpower Systems began erecting near Germany’s coast in 2004 make their older cousins look like pinwheels. Each one has three 61.5‑meter blades, which in a good breeze make one revolution every 5 seconds, pro‑ ducing 5 megawatts of electric power. Inspired by Germany’s bold vision for capturing offshore wind energy, these majestic machines are designed to withstand anything the famously unforgiving North Sea can dish out. And yet, these turbines have never felt the spray of salt water. They tower over communal pasture—above sheep munching, bleating, and adding to the world’s supply of greenhouse gases. These turbines are tucked between a nuclear power station, an incinerator, and a cluster of chemical plants in Brunsbüttel, a hardscrabble harbor town where the Elbe River and the Nord‑Ostsee Canal spill into the Wadden Sea.

Just a few years ago, many Germans thought that by this time, hun‑ power shift: dreds of offshore turbines like these giants from Hamburg, Germany– renewable based REpower would be scattered off their northern coasts. After all, sources should this prospect was a centerpiece of energy plans not only in Germany eventually but also in Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK. But the envisioned replace conventional embrace of offshore wind power was particularly fervent in Germany, electric power where the country’s center‑left political parties hatched plans to dou‑ plants. But the ble renewable energy’s share of power generation to 30 percent by 2020. new and the old But rather than the hundreds of turbines that were to be spinning in will probably coexist for many Germany’s coastal waters by now to meet that schedule, only three tur‑ decades yet, as bines had gone up by the start of this year. they do outside And Germany will not have many more offshore wind turbines any‑ the German city time soon. German energy giant E.ON plans to install a small test farm of cottbus. photo: Joerg on the North Sea this summer. But it will be another one or two years, glaescher/laif/redux

40 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 41 at least, before big offshore wind farms are feeding the German key. Germans, like most people, love the idea of wind power, grid. “Germany lost a lot of momentum,” says Eduard Sala de but not all of them like the idea of having their landscapes Vedruna, a senior analyst tracking wind energy for the consul‑ marred by 130‑meter‑tall wind turbines. What is more, thanks tancy Emerging Energy Research, of Cambridge, Mass., and largely to the 1990 law, most of the sites on land best suited Barcelona. “The offshore projects are at a quite immature stage.” to wind generation were already occupied. So installing tur‑ The idea that Germany is playing catch‑up with Europe’s bines in their offshore territorial waters seemed like the best most promising strategy for renewable energy is jarring. This way around these obstacles. And because winds are in general is Germany, after all, the country that 11 years ago put the Green stronger offshore than onshore, planting turbines far out in the Party in government, decided to phase out nuclear power, and sea promised twice as many hours of peak generation for each pushed wind energy and photovoltaics to grid scale. Today megawatt of installed capacity (assuming that offshore equip‑ Germany’s installed wind‑turbine capacity of 24 gigawatts ment functions reliably over time). ranks second only to that of the United States (which has With these virtues in mind, the government passed its 25 GW). But despite the promises, greenhouse‑gas emissions Renewable Energy Act in 2000, extending the favorable tariffs there haven’t plummeted. Rather, they have gone down only to wind farms in Germany’s North Sea and Baltic waters. By slightly since 2000. Germany, it seems, has lost its groove. 2002—the year in which annual installations on land peaked The result is a turnabout that would have seemed prepos‑ at 3240 MW—developers had filed 29 proposals for offshore terous even six months ago: “Everyone in the environmen‑ farms that together would have had a generating capacity of tal community is looking to the U.S. now,” says Elias Perabo, 63 GW, which was equal to half of Germany’s entire installed who codirects a campaign against the use of coal for Germany’s capacity at the time. Germany’s ministry for the environ‑ Berlin‑based Climate Alliance. ment (its Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und The dearth of offshore wind turbines is just one of several Reaktorsicherheit, or BMU) forecast that 500 MW of offshore signs of a slowdown in the country’s two‑decade‑old transi‑ wind would be operating by 2006 and that an additional tion to renewable energy. Germany’s balkanized power grid, 2500 MW would come on line by 2010. split between east and west when the country was divided and Then the plans crashed headlong into political reality. not yet fully knit back together, remains ill adapted to the vari‑ Almost immediately, conservationists and marine ecologists able flows from renewable energy. And Germany is readying questioned proposed incursions into near‑shore areas where a new generation of coal‑fired power plants—including three millions of migratory birds breed and feed. The BMU handled proposed for Brunsbüttel. that challenge by studying it carefully and then, in 2005, des‑ The story of how Germany lost the lead in the transition to ignating permissible zones for wind development that were far greener sources of energy contains a complex blend of backlash, from shore and in deep water. environmental conflict, and competing commercial interests. As the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden It is a cautionary tale, showing in particular that public con‑ pressed forward with pioneering wind farms installed in sensus about the urgency of combating climate change is just a water less than 20 meters deep and within 15 kilometers of first step in delivering a renewable‑energy system. the shore, Germany’s maritime authority offered developers 20‑ to 40‑meter waters, located for the most part 40 km or No couNtry has Pushed renewable energy more from the coast. That raised the cost and technical risk of harder than Germany has. And much of that impetus came from German projects. Earlier, the German government had man‑ one development: disenchantment with nuclear energy, which dated a tariff of at most 9.1 euro cents (13 U.S. cents) per kilowatt‑ supplies about a quarter of the country’s electrical needs. hour for offshore wind‑generated electricity, no more than its Public opinion turned abruptly against nuclear power in neighbors were offering, despite the higher costs and risks. 1986, after the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine sent radioactive Boosting the tariff to match the challenge faced opposition fallout over northern Europe and made West Germans uneasy from the Big Four utilities that dominate Germany’s power about their own reactors. Popular concern after Chernobyl sector: E.ON, RWE (formerly called Rheinisch‑Westfälisches froze construction of additional reactors and fueled calls from Elektrizitätswerk), Swedish power giant Vattenfall, and the political left to scrap the nation’s existing nuclear plants. Électricité de France–owned EnBW (Energie Baden‑ The chancellor at the time, Helmut Kohl, refused to abandon Württemberg). Saddled with purchasing rising levels of wind this source of carbon‑free electricity, declaring climate change power at top rates, these companies were pressing Berlin to to be Germany’s top environmental challenge. scrap the special tariffs being offered. In this way, Kohl forged a political consensus for reducing greenhouse‑gas emissions. But so far it is renewable energy, it was the revival of Kohl’s center‑right Christian not nuclear, that has reaped the benefits. In 1990, the German Democratic Union party under Chancellor Angela Merkel that government passed its path‑breaking Electricity Feed‑in Law, delivered the concessions needed to kick‑start the offshore‑wind compelling utilities to buy all the power that renewable sources industry. In 2006 Merkel’s government—a coalition that also on their grid could generate—and at premium prices. The included the Social Democrats and the Christian Social Union— Feed‑in Law thus set off a wind‑power boom. made power‑grid operators responsible for running cables to off‑ In 2001 that boom boomeranged on nuclear energy under shore farms. That shaved about one‑fifth off the average cost of a Kohl’s successor, Gerhard Schröder. His Green Party–Social project. And last year Merkel improved the revenue side of the led‑ Democrat coalition cited wind energy as proof that Germany ger, boosting the offshore tariff to €0.15/kWh (US $0.21/kWh). had an alternative to dirty coal and Russian natural gas in Slow but sure change is, well, in the wind. In a world that’s replacing nuclear power. Schröder’s government passed leg‑ putting a price on carbon, Germany’s Big Four power giants islation to shut down all of the country’s reactors by 2022. are warming to the commercial potential of renewable energy. For that to happen, though, offshore wind power would be Over the past few years they have bought into offshore wind by

42 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org exPected aNNual iNstalled Germany’s Wind-Energy Realität eNerGy yields wiNd-eNerGy caPacity lAciNG wiNd turbines many kilometers out to sea eases (millioNS kwh/yEAr) (huNdrEdS of mEGAwAttS) people’s concerns about the appearance of such large structures—an often-voiced objection to the many wind-farm p 30 3500 35 installations in Germany [see graph, far right]. moving facilities 27 3000 30 offshore also boosts the amount of electricity that a 5-megawatt 25 23 turbine can generate [see graph, right]. But Germany lags behind 20 2500 25 many of its neighbors in the construction of offshore wind farms 20 20 [see map]. the pace of offshore wind development appears too slow 15 2000 15 to fill the energy gap that will ensue if Germany carries out its plans 1500 15 to decommission all its nuclear reactors, which still provide about a 10 quarter of electric-power generation for that country [bottom]. a 1000 10 Se t h

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SourcES: yields—German wind Energy Association; capacity—deutsches windenergie-institut; map—European wind Energy Association; generation—international Energy Agency acquiring projects from wind developers. Norbert Giese, direc‑ tor of REpower’s offshore business unit, says this shift is criti‑ here is only one credible cal because most wind developers cannot raise the €1.2 billion (US $1.7 billion) to €1.4 billion (US $2 billion) needed to install a software package source... commercial‑scale offshore farm. When you need to study Turbines have been ordered for more than 900 megawatts’ grounding or electromagnetic worth of installations off Germany’s northern coast. Of that, interference accurately, reliably 60 MW will come from E.ON’s €180‑million (US $254 million) and economically. Alpha Ventus project, a turbine cluster being installed over the Classical Equipotential Grounding next few months 45 km off the North Sea island of Borkum. Multiple grounding systems having any E.ON will plant six of REpower’s behemoth 5‑MW turbines and shape, in simple or complex soils, 1Automated six more turbines of the same capacity from REpower’s compet‑ including any number of layers or het- erogeneous discrete volumes. 2 Accurate itor Multibrid in water 28 to 32 meters deep. Sven Utermöhlen, AutoGroundDesign regional director and CEO for E.ON Climate and Renewables AutoGrid Pro 3 Powerful Central Europe, calls Alpha Ventus a trial to gain logistical expe‑ AutoGround & MultiGround rience with these water depths and offshore distances. Interference Analysis & Environmental Impact They are getting their money’s worth: Unusually rough seas last August scuttled an attempt to put down 700‑metric‑ton steel Perform fast, yet complex & accurate, interference analyses on pipelines, tripods on which to erect the first six turbines. No surprise then railways, etc. Examine electromag- that E.ON—which operates globally—will focus its offshore netic impacts to the environment. Dedicated, flexible tools investments elsewhere in Europe until at least 2011 or 2012. “We’d simplify and automate SESTLC rather proceed sequentially from shore,” Utermöhlen says. Right-Of-Way every aspect of your work. Exceptional documenta- RWE has firm plans to install 30 5‑MW turbines in 2011 SES-Shield tion, context sensitive help MultiLines & SES-Enviro and technical support bring at the Nordsee I wind farm, its first German offshore project. you peace of mind, Many more may follow—RWE took an option with REpower Frequency & Time Domain Analysis when you need help. for an additional 220 turbines. But there’s no guarantee. Martin Upgrade to the full power of MultiFields or Skiba, offshore‑wind director for RWE’s renewable‑energy CDEGS which integrate grounding, electromag- subsidiary, says he’s not sure that €0.15/kWh will cover the netic compatibility, environmental impact and lightning or switching surge analysis. cost of expanding Nordsee and other projects in Germany. www.sestech.com; Email: [email protected] Even if these projects get built, offshore wind will gen‑ Toll free: 1-800-668-3737; Tel: +1-514–336-2511 erate a lot less energy in 2020 than Germany had hoped for. World Leader in Grounding & EMI Just a few years ago, the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie‑Agentur, or DENA) was projecting 20.4 GW of wind power by 2020, but lately the BMU has cut that forecast to just 10 GW. And even that estimate appears optimistic. “These 10 gigawatts are not going to be installed by 2020. That’s a fact,” says Emerging Energy Research’s de Vedruna. He puts the fig‑ ure at 8.4 GW. If every turbine ran full out, they would together deliver less than a quarter of the 149 billion kWh generated by Germany’s nuclear reactors last year. Germany hopes to make up the offshore shortfall by reju‑ venating the onshore market for wind power. Tariff revisions last year added a bonus of half a euro cent per kilowatt‑hour for repowering wind farms—swapping in multimegawatt machines in place of older, smaller turbines. That can dou‑ ble or triple output from a wind farm, but only if neighbors consent. That’s a big “if,” considering that growing resistance to the sight of giant turbines helped to drive Germany’s wind developers offshore in the first place.

what haPPeNs wheN the wind doesn’t blow? Even over the North Sea, the breeze sometimes abates, just as it does frequently enough on land. There was a day in January, for example, when a stalled high‑pressure system becalmed many of Germany’s wind turbines, and just 113 MW flowed from the country’s 24 GW of installed capacity. Pushing renewable energy to an ever larger share of power generation means contending with the problem of backing up this fickle source of energy. Here, too, Germany’s ideas are far bolder than its actions. The challenge is steep. DENA estimates that in 2020 Germany will be able to count on enough renewable generation at any moment to cover just one‑eighth Continued on page 46

44 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org lem, says Czisch, is the Big Four, whose Germany’s Green- power plants face greater competition with every megawatt of added trans‑ Energy Gap mission. “There must be an independent Continued from page 44 state‑owned organization that can calcu‑ late what the grids should look like in the of projected peak power demand, even future,” he says. though its wind turbines, photovoltaics, The good news here is that pres‑ and biomass‑fired power plants may con‑ sure from European Union competi‑ stitute more than one‑third of installed tion authorities forced the Big Four to power capacity. put their transmission subsidiaries up In the long run, a more robust grid for sale. The bad news is that until these might be able to import enough renewable assets are sold, those companies have energy to cover such shortfalls. German even less incentive to invest in better analysts have been in the vanguard of transmission lines. modeling the backup benefits of a trans‑ European supergrid, in which high‑ at the momeNt, however, voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines DENA has more pressing priorities. would provide access to the renewable One of them is dealing with the spread‑ resources available at any given moment ing opposition in Germany to coal‑fired across a broad area of Europe, the Middle power, which has caused a handful East, and North Africa. Energy‑systems of projects to be stalled, blocked, or consultant Gregor Czisch, for example, dropped. Last year DENA determined has shown that Europe could meet all that cancellation of coal projects could its power needs with an HVDC super‑ leave Germany without sufficient con‑ grid sharing northern Europe’s offshore ventional energy capacity to back up its wind energy, Scandinavia’s hydropower, wind and solar power. This “power gap,” and North African solar energy. says DENA’s CEO, Stephan Kohler, could The European Union embraced that reach 12 GW by 2020. concept last year. However, the idea of The gap could even be wider, says exchanging tens of gigawatts of electric Kohler, if energy‑efficiency gains power over thousands of kilometers slide. For example, the DENA’s analy‑ looks positively hallucinatory given sis assumes that Germany will reduce the state of transmission systems in power demand by 8 percent by 2020. Germany today, where wind‑turbine “This is a realistic scenario,” says Kohler. installation has far outpaced expan‑ But then again, “last year power demand sion of the grid. increased 0.9 percent,” he concedes. At present, weak connections “That’s not good.” between the regional grids controlled Climate activists call Kohler’s position by the Big Four’s transmission subsid‑ disingenuous. For one thing, the construc‑ iaries hinder the distribution of wind tion of new coal plants directly contradicts power, heavily concentrated in north‑ the government’s energy‑efficiency plans, ern Germany, to the rest of the coun‑ because only a few facilities will capture try. Already, transmission bottlenecks their waste heat for district heating. A cli‑ require grid operators to idle some wind mate scorecard of G8 countries prepared farms in especially blustery conditions. last year by environmental consultancy A 2005 study by DENA led to a consen‑ Ecofys concluded that the build‑out of sus plan for upgrading the grid, desig‑ coal‑fired plants would “lock Germany nating 850 km of high‑tension AC lines into a high level of carbon intensiveness to be built to integrate wind power. But for the next 40 years.” a combination of tight credit and com‑ Two years ago Germany vowed that munity opposition has stalled some of by 2020 it would cut greenhouse‑gas these high‑priority projects, frustrating emissions by 40 percent from its 1990 renewable‑energy advocates. “The grid level, inspiring its European Union part‑ extensions should have started 10 years ners to agree to a combined reduction of ago,” says Hermann Albers, president of 20 to 30 percent if other countries, such the German Wind Energy Association. as the United States, contribute their Czisch, meanwhile, complains that share. But Ecofys, confirming most other Germany isn’t facing the future and analyses, concluded that an increased building the HVDC cables required to reliance on coal and an emissions‑heavy provide a backup supply of renewable automotive sector meant that Germany power from elsewhere. The root prob‑ was “lagging behind its aspirations.”

46 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org C

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The only hope for neutralizing the greenhouse impact of the coal surge—carbon sequestration—is at least a decade away from implementation. Companies such as Vattenfall are engineering new technologies to reduce the punishing costs of capturing and storing CO2, but they know they will have to convince the same communities that reject wind turbines and power lines in their backyards to accept the presence of CO2 underneath them.

PostPoNiNG the Nuclear phaseout would take the steam out of Germany’s coal surge and erase DENA’s projected power gap. Many expect Chancellor Merkel to do just that if her Christian Democratic Union party wins a major‑ www.spectrum.ieee.org july 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 47 ity in federal elections this fall. It would be a bitter pill for German antinuclear activists. But most of their fellow citi‑ zens seem ready to compromise. The German Physical Society, a scien‑ tific body that has been preoccupied with the dangers of climate change since the early 1980s, has pleaded for continued use of nuclear energy. In 2005, the soci‑ ety assessed Germany’s energy options and calculated that only a nuclear exten‑ sion would enable it to meet its 2020 goals for CO2 reduction. The society predicted then, correctly, that the sup‑ ply of offshore wind energy would fall well short of the government’s projec‑ Where today’s tions. It concludes in its report (and has repeatedly confirmed) that no other mea‑ technology gurus converge. sure even comes close to making up for The brightest minds discussing the biggest topics. the increased carbon emissions from coal that the nuclear phaseout would AVAILABLE ON DEMAND WEBINARS: stimulate: “Whilst originally we had hoped to have sufficient leeway to com‑ pensate for the loss of CO2‑free electric‑ Windows Embedded: The Platform for Connected, ity derived from nuclear power, today we Efficient Industrial Devices are forced to realize that such an equa‑ Find out how Microsoft can help you make the right operating system investments tion will not balance out.” for your manufacturing customers and your industrial solutions business. “I think I could live with that,” agrees www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar Brunsbüttel‑area resident Stephan Klose Create Powerful Data Capture Solutions when asked about keeping nuclear alive. and Gain a Competitive Edge Klose lives 12 km south of Brunsbüttel’s Learn first-hand how bar code scanning and imaging in the healthcare industry cutting‑edge wind turbines, its pro‑ can reduce errors and provide security and safety for patients. posed coal‑fired power plants, and its www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/130483 33‑year‑old nuclear reactor, which has two more years of operation left before Sense, Think, Act for Unmanned Robotic Systems its scheduled shutdown. He likes renew‑ Learn how graphical system design tools are advancing sensing technologies, cutting able energy and fiercely opposes more edge research in autonomy algorithms and novel approaches to actuation and mobility. reliance on coal. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/65454 Shutting down reactors, reasons PGI x64+GPU Fortran & C99 Compilers Klose, will not resolve challenges posed Learn how using the PGI accelerator-enabled compilers, programmers can accelerate by nuclear power, such as the long‑term Linux applications on x64+NVIDIA platforms by adding OpenMP-like compiler directives management of spent fuel rods. “We to existing high-level standard-compliant Fortran and C99 programs. have the nuclear waste anyhow,” says www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/65476 Klose. But last year he joined a local group working against coal, because Multiphysics Simulation he believes that coal‑fired generators in Learn how multiphysics simulations enable innovative technology organizations Brunsbüttel will pollute the area with to advance their product development beyond the ordinary. mercury and contribute to global climate www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/64725 change. The climate concern has a par‑ ticular resonance in this marshy region Colleges are Transitioning for the Future – Are You? where sinking dikes stand between com‑ Set your educational goals and learn what opportunities are available to you as munities and the swiftly rising sea levels undergraduates and working engineers. that these people fear. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/64722 As for carbon capture and storage SPONSORS: neutralizing the climate risk, Klose says no way, raising the specter of sequestered CO2 escaping to the surface and causing mass asphyxiation. “If there’s a leak and you have a 1‑ to 2‑meter‑high level of CO2, every animal, every human being within Sign up today! this zone will die,” says Klose. “I think you can’t take that risk.” o www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar www.spectrum.ieee.org europe: +52% the data bandwidth use u.s. & canada: +51% bandwidth use A Telecom Diet Rich in Fiber transatlantic: +15% lit submarine cable capacity NdErSEA cAblE construction is booming, uwith 15 cables laid last year, as many as in the africa: +69% peak year of 2001. Even more bandwidth use cables will be laid this year, u.s.–latin america: +37% lit submarine cable capacity according to a recent report from teleGeography research, an analytical firm based in Washington, d.c., whose parent company is in Exeter, England. latin america & caribbean: +77% prior to the late 1990s, subsea 20 bandwidth use cables primarily carried telegraph submARine and voice traffic. then the dot-com 15 and telecommunications manias fueled CAble boom unprecedented construction under the sea 10 international supply & as well as on land. in 2001 uS $13.5 billion demand, compound annual 5 growth rate, 2002–08 was spent. but with every boom comes a bust;

only about $2 billion was spent during four lean 0 years from 2004 to 2007. SourceS: TeleGeography in the dot-com boom, spending was speculative research; “History of the and therefore through the roof. this time around, carriers Atlantic cable and undersea communications” by Bill Glover; and wholesalers are adding capacity only where new demand Wikipedia had soaked up the earlier glut. Spending will be lower because most new cables will cover shorter, regional runs. Even during the lean years, global demand never slaked, growing ConsTRuCTion CosT oF submARine CAbles (us $, billions, yeAR CAble enTeReD seRviCe) at an average compound annual rate of 54 percent in the years 14 from 2002 to 2008. in latin America and the caribbean, traffic 15 12 grew the most, at more than 75 percent. —Steven Cherry 12 10 8 9 6 (Projected) 6 4 2 3 transpacific: +21% 0 lit submarine cable capacity 0 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11

numbeR oF new submARine CAbles enTeRing seRviCe 20 20 (Projected) 15 15 10 asia: +69% 10 bandwidth use 5

5 0

0 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 europe–asia: +91% lit submarine cable capacity 150 years cable (coaxial cable, polyeth- ylene insulation, vacuum-tube under the sea repeaters). intra-asia: +31% 1851: First successful com- 1988: TAT-8, the first fiber- lit submarine cable capacity mercial telegraph cable laid, optic Atlantic cable. Capacity: 15England to France (copper 40 000 voice circuits. middle east: +73% wire, gutta-percha, tarred yarn, bandwidth use 12 2001: VSNL Transatlantic laid tarred hemp, and iron wires). a pair of multiterabit cables 9 1858: First transatlantic cable. under the Atlantic. Total band- 61902–1906: Cables cross the width: 5.12 terabits per second. 3Pacific. 2010: Pacific Unity will lay

01956: TAT-1, the first subma- multiple fibers. Total capacity: oceania: +56% rine transatlantic telephone 7.68 terabits per second. bandwidth use

SourceS: http://www.telegeography.com; 56 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • july 2009 http://www.atlantic-cable.com/cables/cableTimeLine/index.htm www.spectrum.ieee.org