Day 3 DesignCon keynote: The future is optics

DesignCon keynoter Prith Banerjee will draw upon his vast experience as director of HP Labs and SVP of research in a talk that will breathe life to the complex realities of handling information within just the next few years. Given 30 billion cellphones, one trillion sensors, large-scale enterprise data warehouses, and social networks will be generating data; in fact, 50 trillion bytes of it every year, today’s server designs will not be suitable to handle the load.

“HP today has the largest market share of servers.  However, when you look at 50 zetabytes of data, and architectures that will be used 5-10 years from now, it’s a whole new world out there,” said Banerjee. “One of the key areas of research at HP Labs  is an intelligent infrastructure, and that is the focus of this keynote. Although photonic light has been used by the telecom industry for the past 30 years, optics have not yet been used within computers for several reasons.”

Banerjee noted that HP Labs is actively researching how photonic interconnects will move into the realm of computers. In the immediate shorter term, the focus is on the backplanes of servers and the sensor switches with photonic interconnects. In the medium term it’s on optics to connect up chips on the board, and in the really long term using optics to connect multiple cores within an electronic chip.

Banerjee will delve into the realities of integrating optics into silicon, and relate what designers are in for as real capabilities begin to develop. Comparing the huge learning curves of moving from NMOS to CMOS technology, or the move from small-scale semiconductors to medium and large-scale semis, Banerjee will relate what he sees as the scale of issues engineers will face. As a former professor and academic, Banerjee’s knowledge and passion comes through in the telling as he muses about exciting near and long-term opportunities.

“The future is going to be optics and when optoelectronics becomes mainstream, designers will need to know about the physics, electrical engineering relating to optics, and photonic interconnects, and new design and analysis tools for optoelectronic components,” said Banerjee.

If you want a bird’s eye view into the happenings at HP Labs, and how the future of optics will impact you and your career, plan on attending Banerjee’s keynote on Wednesday, February 1, 12:00pm – 12:30pm.. Prith Banerjee is SVP research at Hewlett Packard and director of HP Labs.  Still need to register? It’s easy. Click here.