PORTLAND, OR - IBM has reportedly developed the fastest, most highly integrated optical data bus ever built.

The prototype technology could reportedly bring greatly increased bandwidth in an energy efficient package to many areas of technology, from cell phones to supercomputers.

Developed by scientists at IBM's Zurich Research Lab, these optical circuit boards, called "optocards," use an array of polymer optical waveguides with a diameter smaller than a human hair to conduct light between transmitters and receivers. Using light instead of wires to transmit information reportedly allows a transmission rate of 8 terabits of data per second, which is equivalent to about 5,000 HD video streams, while only using the power of a 100-Watt lightbulb. On a printed circuit board, a databus of 48 polymer waveguides can use a path 3 mm wide. Previous systems would use four times more space.

This increased energy efficiency and acceleration of speed will allow the sharing of large datasets, and claimed potential advantages of the increased bandwidth is far-reaching. The new technology could significantly reduce the amount of power by supercomputers, translating into a power savings of 10 times over currently available optical modules.

"Last year we introduced an optical transceiver chip set that had the capability to transmit a high-defintion movie in less than one second using highly customized parts and processes. Just a year later, we've connected these high-speed chips through printed circuit boards with dense integrated optical “wiring” [building] an even faster transceiver... using all standard, commercially available parts and tools," explains IBM researcher Clint Schow. "These aren't theoretical experiments or chips sitting in unique conditions in a lab, but rather chipsets that could hit the market in the next two years. The innovation lies in the fact that we are making optics with the same kind of packaging as electronics."

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