Researchers from the University of Southampton developed a method for making programmable integrated switching units on a silicon photonics chip. By using a generic optical circuit that can be fabricated in bulk then later programmed for specific applications, the team hopes to reduce production costs.
The need for data center optics is real, but silicon photonic chips may not provide the answer. The original goal of optical fiber and related silicon photonic chips was to overcome the limitations of copper wires and support faster interconnects between data centers. To achieve this goal, data center need optical elements such as cheap lasers, low signal lose technologies (low SNR) and cheap system assembly and packaging.
