NEWS: OIDA president talks of a future where silicon photonics will be ubiquitous and energy efficient

February 12, 2009

 

Silicon photonics will leverage from the IC industry more quickly than anticipated and follow its own "Moore's Law"

 

Washington, DC - Focused on the status and future trends of silicon photonics, Dr. Michael Lebby presented a keynote speech on February 5 at the Conference on Silicon Photonics sponsored by the Japanese trade association OITDA in Tokyo, Japan.

Dr. Lebby addressed the technical leaders of Japan's silicon and photonics industries in a field that has attracted huge audiences over the past five years. He discussed the progress of silicon photonics to compete with the established incumbent Indium Phosphide (InP) photonic integrated circuits. Dr. Lebby predicted that silicon photonics will follow its own "Moore's Law" as integration levels continue to increase at a similar rate and timeframe. Even with major academic announcements in silicon photonics that show laboratory performance with silicon photonic devices of 40 and 100 Gbps for telecommunications, he noted that the real killer application will be with photonic integrated circuit designs for datacom and consumer markets.

"Silicon photonics ubiquitous future will be in energy efficient photonic integrated circuits," Dr. Lebby predicted, "and not super high data-rates as demonstrated by the research community." He discussed a number of leading U.S. manufacturers which have already announced qualified products for datacom and consumer applications where lower power consumption is a key attribute. One such example of silicon photonics in high volume datacom consumer applications is an active optical cable (AOC) for high definition television where data rates of 10 Gbps are already being utilized. Silicon photonics will allow smaller, lower cost, energy efficient products in quantities that are expected to top 100 million units over the next decade.

Dr. Lebby also included silicon photonics in the new Green Photonics™ energy efficiency initiative by OIDA which promotes a new energy efficient and sustainability segment of the photonics industry. OIDA will review the business/market and technical aspects of Green Photonics at OIDA's OPTOmism: Powering the Green Revolution through Photonics Conference, May 18-20, 2009. With a host of well-known, highly-regarded speakers, the three days of OPTOmism (www.optomism.com) will explore U.S. energy related optoelectronics, photonics, optics, and physics based solutions across a broad applications portfolio. Speakers will debate solar, lighting, instrumentation in yield enhancement for everything from oil discovery and recovery, clean coal, biomass, and communications.

About OIDA

OIDA is a Washington DC-based, non-profit association that promotes optoelectronics. OIDA members include the leading providers of optoelectronic components and systems enabled by optoelectronics, as well as universities and research institutions. OIDA serves as the voice of industry to government and academia, acts as liaison with other industry associations worldwide, and provides a network for the exchange of ideas and information within the optoelectronics community.

Learn more about OIDA at www.oida.org.

OIDA Editorial Contact:

David Iams
Director of Communications
(202) 785-4426
iams@oida.org