University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Intel have teamed to create lasers on chips, a technology the researchers say could make networks speedier and much cheaper to build.
The real breakthrough was creating a laser using standard silicon manufacturing processes. The technology exploits the light-emitting properties of Indium Phosphide (commonly used in telecom gear) with silicon’s ability to route light. Lasers have proven effective for building high-end network gear that zips traffic across long distances, but up until now researchers hadn’t come up with a cost-effective way to bring such technology to computers and network gear used within data centers. Network speeds within data centers could jump from 10G to double or triple that, according to the researchers. “This could bring low-cost, terabit-level optical ‘data pipes’ inside future computers and help make possible a new era of high-performance computing applications,” said Mario Paniccia, director of Intel’s Photonics Technology Lab, in a statement “While still far from becoming a commercial product, we believe dozens, maybe even hundreds of hybrid silicon lasers could be integrated with other silicon photonic components onto a single silicon chip.” Scads of projects are underway at labs across the world to develop next-generation chips. U.K. researchers, for example, have found a way to use ultraviolet light instead of furnaces to create the silicon dioxide insulation layer on computer chips, a breakthrough that could lead to big energy savings for chip makers and lower prices for customers.
Bob Brown, bbrown@nww.com
