Electro-Optical

Big Blue has created a new type of chip:

IBM has become the first company to integrate electrical and optical components on the same chip, using a standard 90nm semiconductor process. These integrated, monolithic chips will allow for cheap chip-to-chip and computer-to-computer interconnects that are thousands of times faster than current state-of-the-art copper and optical networks. Where current interconnects are generally measured in gigabits per second, IBM’s new chip is already capable of shuttling data around at terabits per second, and should scale to peta- and exabit speeds.

After more than a decade of research, and a proof of concept in 2010, IBM Research has finally cracked silicon nanophotonics (or CMOS-integrated nanophotonics, CINP, to give its full name). IBM has proven that it can produce these chips on a commercial process, and they could be on the market within a couple of years.

Exabit-rate integrated silicon nanophotonics.

Use that phrase at the next family gathering and That Annoying Relative might actually STFU for a while.