Researchers Bring Optical Communication Onto Silicon Chips

The huge increase in computing performance in recent decades has been achieved by squeezing ever more transistors into a tighter space on microchips. However, this downsizing has also meant packing the wiring within microprocessors ever more tightly together, leading to effects such as signal leakage between components, which can slow down communication between different parts of the chip. This delay, known as the “interconnect bottleneck,” is becoming an increasing problem in high-speed computing systems.

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