Book

Silicon Photonics: Fueling the Next Information Revolution is the title of the book Daryl Inniss and I have written, published at the end of 2016.

We wrote the book as we felt the timing was right for a silicon photonics synthesis book that assesses the significant changes taking place in the datacom, telecom, and semiconductor industries, and that explains the market opportunities and the role silicon photonics will play.

Silicon photonics is maturing at a time of momentous change. Internet content providers are driving requirements as they scale their data centres. The chip industry is grappling with the end of Moore’s law. And the telecom community faces its own challenges as the bandwidth-carrying capacity of fibre starts to be approached.

Silicon photonics will be a key technology for a post–Moore’s law era, and it will be the chip industry, not the photonics industry, that will drive optics

Each of these changes – the data center, the end of Moore’s law, and the endless craving for capacity – is significant in its own right. But collectively they signify a need for new thinking regarding chips, optics, and systems. Silicon photonics is arriving at an opportune time.

The book discusses how silicon photonics is set to influence both industries. For the optical industry, the technology will allow designs to be tackled in new ways. For the chip industry, silicon photonics may be a peripheral if an interesting technology, but it will impact chip design.

The book’s focus is the telecom and datacom industries; these are and will remain the primary markets for silicon photonics over the next decade. But we also note other developments where silicon photonics can play an important role.

The book is published by Elsevier’s Morgan Kaufman and is available as a paperback and on Kindle.