LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--APIC Corp of Culver City, CA, announces a major breakthrough in computer technology has been achieved by a research team under the leadership of APIC’s Chairman and CEO Dr Birendra “Raj” Dutt. The core breakthrough was to get the element Germanium to act as a laser, for use as a light source on a new generation of mass produced silicon semiconductor chips using light particles, or photons, instead of electronics for its functions - i.e., photonic chips. This results in computer chips providing much greater performance at a tiny fraction of today’s current power usage.
Acting as Principal Investigator Dr Birendra “Raj” Dutt led a team of researchers at MIT, Stanford, and at APIC to achieve this long searched for result. “Both the scientific community and industry have been waiting for a breakthrough like this and I am extremely proud of my team,” said Dutt. “But I am most excited about the practical effect on the world. We will now be able to use photons for many of the information functions that electrons have performed on silicon computer chips – drastically reducing their power consumption while supercharging performance.”
Incorporating a Silicon-compatible light source such as Germanium into the semiconductor itself has been the key missing piece for economical manufacturing of photonic semiconductor chips. Silicon is the base material for the worldwide semiconductor industry, so if the light source is not Silicon-compatible, it cannot be integrated onto the chip economically enough to ever make it into mass production. Germanium is compatible with Silicon and is already commonly used in semiconductors, which is why the APIC led team‘s accomplishment has major implications.
Not only will Photonic chips use a fraction of the power currently needed, but because photons do not generate heat, much of the cooling used in computers and data centers also would be unnecessary while also reducing land and building requirements to accommodate the space and cooling equipment normally associated. “Photonics is naturally Green,” said Dutt. Along with the energy savings, optical data communications networks provide massive increases in processor speed and computational capabilities.
Dutt and APIC have teamed with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in New York State (CNSE), with a plan of producing a fully manufacturable photonic chip in 2 years using this technology. The plan is a great testimony to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s declaration that New York is open for business.
APIC Corporation is headquartered at 5800 Uplander Way, Culver City, CA 90230. Tel: (310) 417-3652, with offices in Washington D.C.; Boston, MA; Palo Alto, CA; Albany, NY; Melbourne, FL; and advanced Photonics laboratory facilities in Honolulu, HI. APIC Corporation is a world leader and supplier to the US Military in the development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
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