IBM Promises Silicon Nanophotonics For Big Data By Wolfgang Gruener December 12, 2012 12:03 PM Tags : Big Data Hardware & Software Analytics IBM IBM says that it can now build a "silicon nanophotonics" chip in a sub-100 nm manufacturing process. According to the company, its 90 nm Silicon Integrated Nanophotonics technology can combine traditional electrical circuits and optical components, including a photodetector and a modulator. IBM believes that the technology will especially benefit the data processing needs in servers, large datacenters, and supercomputers by increasing data transfer speeds. "This technology breakthrough is a result of more than a decade of pioneering research at IBM," said John Kelly, Director of IBM Research. "This allows us to move silicon nanophotonics technology into a real-world manufacturing environment that will have impact across a range of applications." The company said that applications such as big data require requires systems to process and analyze huge volumes of information in real-time and therefore builds the case for silicon nanophotonics as it can move terabytes of data via pulses of light through optical fibers. The company claims that the CMOS nanophotonics technology can exceed a bandwidth of 25 Gbps per channel. It can also multiplex large data streams at high data rates, IBM said. Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources. See here for all of Wolfgang's Tom's IT Pro articles. Take your big ideas off the back burner with Converged Infrastructure Check Out These IT VideosVIDEO: Cloud Services: No Buzz, No BullVIDEO: How Secure Are Your Mobile Devices?VIDEO: What's a Virtual Phone?VIDEO: Data Center ConvergenceVIDEO: Quick Look - Intel S2600CP MotherboardVIDEO: Big Data, Big Hardware, Big SoftwareVIDEO: Quick Look - Intel S2600IP MotherboardVIDEO: Increase Security with Multi-Factor AuthenticationVIDEO: Unified Communications - Embrace or Replace?VIDEO: Bring It All Together with UCVIDEO: Ed's Story - From Mainframe to Virtualization Comment on this article ... Comment(s)| Comments