Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
The was a article in Scientific American some decades ago about integrated optics, which were chips that would use light to change the state of their "optical transistors".
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I have not been able to find much since on this since. One wonders if it was a technological dead end or became classified.
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Hi Peter,
Optical computing is still an area of active research and pops up in the
engineering press now and then, such as this story at the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 3 weeks ago :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/optical-co...cosecond-gates
What has become more advanced at the commercialization level rather
than the pure research level is optical interconnect. This January 2023
story at the IEEE Spectrum Magazine is about two startup companies that
are bringing to market chip to chip communication via optical fiber.
The developers say it is not only faster than copper interconnect, but uses
a fraction of the power, a major consideration in large data centers :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/optical-interconnects