Intel believes that Light Peak, its high-speed optical interconnect technology, will be integrated within all PCs and consumer electronic devices in the next couple of years. If this comes to pass, Light Peak optical interconnect would catapult optical technology from the relatively niche telecom market to the mainstream.
Intel started the Light Peak program four years ago to develop an optical cable technology designed to connect electronic devices such as computers, displays, docking stations, disk drives, and peripherals such as camera and smartphones. Intel’s goal for Light Peak was to replace copper cables, which had reached practical limits in terms of both bandwidth and reach, with an interconnect that provided both high speed (10 Gbps in its initial version with a migration path to 100 Gbps) and support for multiple protocols.
To learn more about the prospects for success for Intel’s Light Peak optical interconnect program, read “Intel plots Light Peak interconnect revolution” by Senior Editor Meghan Fuller Hanna in the June 2010 issue of Lightwave.
