Last week’s announcement of the “World’s first hybrid silicon laser,” made me both excited and annoyed. I’ve been following the promise of optical interconnect technology for almost two decades, and have written a few reviews of the technology over the years. Researchers have come up with many interesting schemes for routing light around chips, boards, and computers: these include integrated silicon waveguides, planar waveguides, free-space interconnects, and photonic crystal pathways (I haven’t written about these but know people working on them). These all have tremendous potential in terms of improving on-chip, chip-chip, or board-board communication. Apart from the obvious, applications include one that I am passionate about: full interconnection of brainlike artificial neural networks. Read More …
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