Intel develops 50Gbps silicon optical network

CALIFORNIA, USA: Intel Corporation announced that it has developed 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link prototype, a silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers using Hybrid Silicon Laser technology.

It uses light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers.

Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer and director of Intel Labs, demonstrated the Silicon Photonics Link at the Integrated Photonics Research conference in Monterey, California.

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"The 50Gbps link is akin to a "concept vehicle" that allows Intel researchers to develop technologies that transmit data over optical fibres, using light beams from silicon, instead of exotic materials like gallium arsenide," said Justin Rattner.

The prototype is composed of a silicon transmitter and a receiver chip, each integrating building blocks from Intel's Hybrid Silicon Laser co-developed with the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2006 as well as optical modulators and photodetectors announced in 2007.

The transmitter chip is composed of four such lasers, whose light beams each travel into an optical modulator that encodes data onto them at 12.5Gbps. The four beams are then combined and output to a single optical fiber for a total data rate of 50Gbps.

At the other end of the link, the receiver chip separates the four optical beams and directs them into photo detectors, which convert data back into electrical signals. Both chips are assembled using low-cost manufacturing techniques familiar to the semiconductor industry.

Intel researchers are already working to increase the data rate by scaling the modulator speed as well as increase the number of lasers per chip, providing a path to future terabit/s optical links -- rates fast enough to transfer a copy of the entire contents of a typical laptop in one second.