A Look at Photonic Clocking

zymano writes "In an article on the Electronic Engineering Times site James Siepmann shares a few thoughts about Photonic Clocking. Siepmann states: 'Copper interconnects are reaching their limit as data-transmission bandwidth and processor speed continue to rise. [..] Photonic clocking not only solves the limitations of electronic clocking, but also reduces jitter, skew, delay, crosstalk and power consumption while maintaining clock signal integrity for longer distances.'" Are Photonic Processors the next logical step, or will the almighty buck shuffle them aside because of cost?

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What?

[scheme]

Are Photonic Processors the next logical step, or will the almighty buck shuffle them aside because of cost?

If photonic processors go into widespread usage, it will probably be because of the almighty buck and companies deciding that they can make more of it by producing photonic processors.

Profits and competition are the main reason for a lot of the recent advances in processor performance. Look at the processor introductions back when 486 and pentium processors were around and Intel didn't have any credible competition.