The chip, called Holey Optochip, is a parallel optical transceiver consisting of both a transmitter and a receiver, and is designed to handle the large amount of data created and transmitted over corporate and consumer networks as a result of new applications and services. It is expected to power future supercomputer and data center applications, an area where IBM already uses optical technology.
via IBM optical chip moves data at 1Tbps | Computer Hardware – InfoWorld.
Rather than trying to merge flat chips with round optical fibres, the team of scientists used high-pressure chemistry techniques to deposit semiconducting materials layer by layer directly into tiny holes in optical fibres. This bypasses the need to integrate fibre-optics onto a chip, and means that the data signal never has to leave the fibre.
via Soton boffins embed electronic components into optical fibres – Techworld.com.
Meanwhile, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced in Novemebr that they had developed photonic chips that use light beams rather than electrons. The arrival of photonic computers could help speed traffic across fibre optic networks by eliminating a conversion process, the researchers said.
In the near term, though, garnet-on-silicon chips are likely to be used in networking — first in backbone routers, which are physically huge and very power hungry because of the current size of optical switching hardware, and then hopefully at home and in the office (100Gbps home networks!) Then, once the size of MIT’s diode for light is scaled down — it’s currently around 400nm long, some 20 times larger than a transistor — we might begin to see photonic circuits in computers.
via MIT creates diode for light, makes photonic silicon chips possible | ExtremeTech.
Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport protocol (similar to TCP used in IP networks) which predominantly transports SCSI commands over Fibre Channel networks.[1][2]
via Fibre Channel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Despite its name, Fibre Channel signaling can run on both twisted paircopperwire and fiber-opticcables.[1][2]
I still need to know how this is done over fibre.
Scientists working at the Institute of Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL), which is part of the City College of New York (CUNY), have discovered a new way of mapping spiralling light that could allow telecommunications operators the ability to harness “untapped data channels” within fibre optic broadband ISP cables.