IDF 2022: Intel Discovers How Silicon Photonics Enables 100 Gigabit Transfers

More six years after Intel beginning teased its ability to inject data into chips using silicon lasers, the company today announced its silicon photonics data transmission technology is now available, promising the ability to cheaply transport information at 100 Gigabits per second.

Silicon photonics harnesses two of the twentieth century's most famous inventions: lasers and silicon fries. Information technology combines an integrated circuit—Intel's bread and butter—with a semiconductor laser and so that information tin can be sent and received through lite. The consequence is the emptying of data heart bottlenecks, a move that is seen as crucial with more than calculator users' data now being stored in the Cloud.

Intel Silicon Photonics Data center customers tin can at present order Intel's first Silicon Photonics 100G optical transceivers, Diane Bryant, Senior Vice President and General Managing director of the Data Center Group at Intel, revealed at the on-going Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. She said Intel is the first manufacturer to sell a laser-powered silicon device. The outset transceivers started shipping in June 2022.

Not merely is silicon photonics fast, it'south also power efficient, with each transceiver using just 3.5W of electricity. Data centre administrators, especially those at companies like Facebook, whose entire business relies on its network of massive server farms, are loathe to add together new devices that increment power demands.

Intel beginning announced its silicon photonics enquiry in 2022, when it teased the manual engineering'southward power to revolutionize information transfers for consumers, besides. Justin Rattner, Intel Master Technical Officer at the fourth dimension, said he envisioned photonics-enabled mobile devices being able to instantly download a few seasons' worth of HD-encoded TV shows as their owners were walking out the door to a holiday.

Bryant gave no indication today of whether Intel plans to market place its transceivers for consumer devices.

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