Slideshow: DesignCon presages silicon photonics era

2/1/2013 12:05 PM EST

"here comes PAM-2 and -4!"...well, these schemes were used several years ago to get up to 1Gb/s so little has really changed in that respect, throughput numbers are "just" getting bigger

2/1/2013 12:48 PM EST

Just fyi, silicon photonics is almost entirely an SOI-based area -- even for Intel.

2/2/2013 10:38 AM EST

The photonic component, e.g., VCSEL, is also power-consuming. Putting it on silicon really defeats the purpose of the low-power designs for the other electronic components.

2/2/2013 11:51 AM EST

Its amazing to know that copper traces can handle 40-50GB/s. I remember in India all telephone lines were using copper cables and it was later replaced with optical cables. I wonder if it was good idea to retain those cables.

2/4/2013 1:17 PM EST

what is the power dissipation for VCSELs?

2/4/2013 8:44 PM EST

I've written several blogs, including two slideshows, at www.theconnectingedge.com and
www.designconcommunity.com.