Intel Corporation today announced an important advance in the quest to use light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers. With the technology behind it Intel sees this as a replacement for connectors such as USB 3.0.
They already reached 50 Gbps with this new Photonics link. The prototype is composed of a transmitter chip, which merges the beams of four 12.5 Gbps lasers, as well as a receiver chip tasked with separating them and directing them into photon detectors. Said detectors then convert the data back into electrical signals.
