Intel is studying optical interconnects with an eye toward replacing chip-to-chip electrical interconnects in order to overcome looming bandwidth issues as microprocessors with an increasing number of cores usher in the era of tera-scale computing. Ian Young, an Intel Fellow and director of the company’s advanced circuits and technology integration project, presented a paper at the IEEE’s International Solid State Circuits Conference describing progress in integrating the waveguides, detectors and modulators needed for integrating photonic interconnects directly onto CMOS chips.
Intel Developing Optical Chip-to-Chip Interconnects
February 12, 2009