Optical Interconnect

Optical interconnect is a way of communication by optical cables. Compared to traditional cables, optical interconnect wires are capable of much higher bandwidth, from 10 Gbit/s up to 100 Gbit/s.

The Optical Interconnect technology is currently being introduced as a way to link computers to mobile devices, as well as on motherboards and devices within computers.

IBM Optical Interconnect Prototype

IBM has created a prototype optical interconnect using wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM).

WDM is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This technique enables bidirectional communications over a single strand of fiber, also called wavelength-division duplexing, as well as multiplication of capacity.

They suggest that if successful, this new optical interconnect technology could lead to the first computer capable of exascale computing (a computer that can perform a billion computations per second). A waveguide emits eight different colored beams into several different ports of a modulator, which allows eight signals to be transferred concurrently. This multi-wavelength beam travels through the chip, with optical switches controlling the direction.

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