Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data

チップ間をレーザー光で結ぶという大胆な挑戦で，ペンタゴンと4400万ドルの5年契約を締結という話。米スタンフォード大，UCサンディエゴ，Luxtera，Koturaといった面々が開発パートナとして顔を連ねる。それにしても，まさにギャンブルである。

The Sun researchers acknowledge that their project is a significant gamble.
“This is a high-risk program,” said Ron Ho, a researcher at Sun Laboratories who is one of the leaders of the effort. “We expect a 50 percent chance of failure, but if we win we can have as much as a thousand times increase in performance.

ポイントは位置制御。自動補正ができるようになれば実用性が一段高まる気がする。

However, the new approach, which is based on the company’s ability to accurately align chips with high precision making it possible to transmit beams of light across the surface of the chips in ultranarrow channels called wave guides, could have a much bigger impact.