Researchers attach silicon photonic chips directly onto a processor package

The computing and telecommunications industries have ambitious plans for the future: Systems that will store information in the cloud, analyze enormous amounts of data, and think more like a brain than a standard computer. Such systems are already being developed, and scientists at IBM Research have now demonstrated what may be an important step toward commercializing this next generation of computing technology. They established a method to integrate silicon photonic chips with the processor in the same package, avoiding the need for transceiver assemblies.

The new technique, which will be presented 25 March at this year's OFC Conference and Exposition in Los Angeles, California, USA, should lower the cost and increase the performance, energy efficiency and size of future data centers, supercomputers and cloud systems.