Optical interconnect is a way of communication by optical cables. Compared to traditional cables, optical wires are capable of a much higher bandwidth

Bandwidth (computing)

In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...

, from 10 Gb/s up to 100 Gb/s.

The technology is currently being introduced as a way to link computers to mobile devices, as well as on motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

s and devices within computers

IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 has created a prototype optical interconnect using wavelength-division multiplexing

Wavelength-division multiplexing

In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light...

 (WDM). They suggest that if
successful, this technology could lead to the first computer capable of exascale computing

Exascale computing

Exascale computing is a 21st-century attempt to move computing capabilities beyond the existing petascale. If achieved, it would represent a thousandfold increase over that scale...

 (a computer that can perform a billion billion
computations per second).
A waveguide

Waveguide

A waveguide is a structure which guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound waves. There are different types of waveguides for each type of wave...

 emits eight different colored beams into several different ports of a modulator, which allows eight signals to be transferred concurrently.
This multi-wavelength beam travels through the chip, with optical switches controlling the direction.

See also

• Optical communication
  Optical communication
  Optical communication is any form of telecommunication that uses light as the transmission medium.An optical communication system consists of a transmitter, which encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel, which carries the signal to its destination, and a receiver, which reproduces the...
  
  
• Parallel optical interface
  Parallel optical interface
  A parallel optical interface is a form of fiber optic technology aimed primarily at communications and networking over relatively short distances , and at high bandwidths....
  
  
• Thunderbolt (interface)
• Interconnect bottleneck
  Interconnect bottleneck
  The interconnect bottleneck, the point at which integrated circuits reach their capacity, is expected sometime around 2010.Improved performance of computer systems has been achieved, in large part, by downscaling the IC minimum feature size. This allows the basic IC building block, the transistor,...
  
  
• Optical fiber cable
  Optical fiber cable
  An optical fiber cable is a cable containing one or more optical fibers. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube suitable for the environment where the cable will be deployed....