The microelectronics lifespan might come to an end much sooner than some expect. All-optical chips (up to 1 MM higher speed then their microelectronics counterparts, and low noise) will replace them. The electrical wires inside the chip will be replaced by waveguides (the electrons will be replaced by photons).
The first elements (optical switches, and optical amplifiers, and so on) of this future trend are already here. See a sample below.
Mike
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By Aki Tsukioka, JCNN
1/25/2005, 14:49(JST)
Fujitsu, HHI of Germany Develop World's First Ultra High-Speed Optical Fiber Switch with Power Amplification Features
Tokyo (JCNN) - Fujitsu Laboratories and Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI) of Germany announced January 21 the development of the world's first ultra high-speed optical fiber switch with optical amplification features using nonlinear optical effects of optical fiber, and successfully processed optical signals at 640Gbps. The new optical fiber switch features 100 times or more the amplification capability of the conventional device over a wide wavelength range, and enables switching at over 1Tbps. The partners have also succeeded in receiving 640Gbps signals as 64-channel 10Gbps signals.
The technology developed for the new fiber-optic switch will be used for future-generation high-speed optical processing technologies, such as ultra high-speed optical data transmission and optical switching, which employ ultra high-resolution optical waveform monitors (optical sampling oscilloscopes) and all-optical technology.
This new technology utilizes highly nonlinear optical fibers, a single-mode optical fiber that has a distinctive structure that increases the nonlinear optical effect. By exploiting the highly nonlinear optical effect, the optical switch has potential to operate at 1Tbps, and at the same time is able to amplify the power of optical signals by optical parametric amplification. As the optical switch can perform both optical switching and optical amplification simultaneously, it is the world's first of its kind capable of ultra high-speed optical switching with extremely low noise levels. The length of the highly nonlinear optical fibers used in the switch is 20-30 meters, a length for practical use.
