News Intel Developing Optical Connect for Laptops, Servers

Intel are preparing for the jump to lightspeed, hopefully (because this is the real trick) avoiding any cable entanglements...

From PCWorld:

Intel is developing an optical interconnect technology to replace copper ribbons in laptop computers and servers that should be ready for commercialization within three to five years, says Justin Rattner, Intel senior fellow and director of the company's systems technology labs.

The laboratory is also working on an optical interconnect technology for chip packages that could be ready between five and ten years from now, he said in an interview in Tokyo.

"We have built short-range optical links that we believe will be cheaper, less noisy, and smaller than copper ribbons. You can get high-speed signals and you can get rid of the need of having to use copper ribbons," Rattner said.

The optical interconnect technology aimed at laptops and servers uses tiny lasers and fiber-optic cables to transmit data at multigigabit speeds over a distance of about half a meter. While Intel has not yet approached PC and server vendors, the company is collaborating with optical switch and network technology suppliers, and is confident that the technology can be made ready for volume production in three to five years.

"What we are looking at is using it to feed display data from the motherboard to the screen, or using it for servers to route high-speed, gigabit traffic in dense server environments," he said.

More here