By this time next decade, all the data communications between systems, boards and even chips on boards will be done with optical signals, thanks to silicon photonic technologies being perfected now, according to Intel. Look for optical communications not only to lower power and costs of electronics, but also to reduce the weight of portable devices to styrofoam-levels within five to ten years. RColinJohnson @NextGenLog
Here is what EETimes says about Intel's silicon photonics efforts: Silicon photonics will replace copper connections in everything from supercomputers to servers to PCs, according to Intel Corp. researchers who demonstrated 50-Gb/s optical transmitter and receiver chips that it plans to scale up to terabit-per-second speeds prior to commercialization...Optical connections can operate over longer distances than copper wires, according to Intel, and could eventually replace not only the copper connections between systems, but those between boards in the same system and eventually between cores on the same board. The chip maker already has a 10-Gbit/s Light Peak chip that uses conventional optical technologies. Intel's Photonics Technology Lab is leveraging its silicon manufacturing expertise to build photonic components. [Intel] estimated that the first commercial applications of silicon photonics will begin appearing in as little as five years in data centers and supercomputer facilities...
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