ibm news, page-4

Here is a little bit on the optical silicon stuff

Silicon Photonics, Silicon Laser and Optical Interconnects Translucent’s ‘optical silicon’ invention is the original materials development project upon which the company was founded in 2001. The development of optically active silicon which is fully compatible with today’s silicon chip fabrication techniques hasbeen a long held objective of the semiconductor industry, and is becoming ever more critical to the continued progress of the silicon chip industry according to Moore’s Law.In particular, the development of a silicon laser and optical amplifier (both requiringoptical gain) and silicon optical inter connects scaleable to current and future nano technology nodes is of fundamental importance to such progress. We believe Translucent’s optical silicon project is at the forefront of this field, and is moving steadily towards achieving a complete materials solution for full opto-electronic integration in the silicon CMOS industry.The Translucent silicon project is part of the Electronics and Photonics Integrated Circuits (EPIC) Program funded by the US Defense Advanced Research ProjectAgency (DARPA). Under the DARPA Contract which commenced in January 2005,Translucent is funded to develop proprietary silicon-based optical gain materials and devices as part of the broader EPIC Program, details of which can be found at:www.darpa.mil/mto/epic/.Translucent is currently proceeding with Phase II milestones in this project, which will result in the demonstration of an electrically driven Silicon Optical Amplifier (SOA)prototype. The SOA device will potentially be used in CMOS compatible silicon-based optical interconnects and gain elements for planar lightwave circuits. As part of theDARPA EPIC program, Translucent is also collaborating with the Micro and Nano-Photonics Research Group (Painter Lab) at the California Institute of Technology(Caltech). The Caltech Painter Lab (refer to link: http://copilot.caltech.edu) is integrating Translucent’s optically active materials into their state-of-the-art optical microdisc resonators. This effort will potentially result in accelerated demonstration ofoptical amplifier and laser devices suitable for optical signal processing in late 2007