SCIENCE SPIN-OFFS

[ChitForBrains]

Speaking of photonics, Bell Labs is back in the news.
http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=49246

A*STAR, Alcatel-Lucent Team to Commercialize Chips

SINGAPORE, Nov. 28, 2011 — The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), plans to commercialize key innovations in silicon chips designed to support high-speed, high-bandwidth optical communications...
Working with a global semiconductor foundry, Globalfoundries of Milpitas, Calif., IME and the Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent plan to bring innovative silicon component designs from the research stage to commercial fabrication readiness within the next few years.
The scalable silicon building blocks will be made accessible to photonics developers. Benefits of the technology include increased data rate and processing power at a reduced cost to the industry, according to the team.
The collaboration leverages Bell Labs’ design and research expertise with the development expertise of IME to create a library of silicon photonic devices with the requisite process control monitors and process design kits. Next-generation high-speed optical modulators, germanium photodetectors, waveguides and other common photonic circuits found in networking equipment will be offered as a result....

My questions on ALU board went unanswered. Mainly will this get us closer to quantum computing or hender it by making almost as good as, so much faster than before that we forget to continue to leap forward?

So if anything they can copy some of the acheivements of Bell Labs' to get started at chiping that.