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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

"OPTICS: Silicon photonics goes mainstream"


Silicon photonics is ready for prime time, according to presenters at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition this week in San Diego.
The move from copper twisted pairs--which consume from seven or more watts to transmit and receive 10-Gbits/second of network traffic--to optical fibers can cut power consumption ten fold, proponents say. Moving further to silicon-based optical components could cut power by half again while driving down costs with CMOS integration.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900492