A copper topper
Technology Review covers the emerging realm of silicon-based optical connections in its current issue.
The take:
[E]xisting optical components, which are made out of such exotic semiconductors as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, are far too expensive for use in individual computers or even local networks. If you could make optical devices out of silicon, which is cheap and, at least for a company like Intel, easy to manufacture, that would change everything… Companies would likely exploit that capability first by replacing copper connections with optical links in networks. But eventually, silicon photonics might also replace copper wires between processors within a single chip.
Pat Gelsinger, a senior VP at Intel, has a vision: “Silicon to us, it’s maybe not a religious experience, but it’s pretty close. Silicon has proven cost effective, scalable, durable, manufacturable and has all sorts of other wonderful characteristics… Today, optics is a niche technology. Tomorrow it’s the mainstream of every chip that we build.”
