Can nano-photonic silicon circuits become an INTRA-chip interconnect technology?

Surprisingly, nano-photonic silicon has already emerged as a commercial INTER-chip optical communications technology. This was made possible by Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI), technology, which integrates many of the optical communications components directly in silicon CMOS chips. Intel and Luxtera have both announced > 10Gb/sec optical modulators, integrated into Silicon. All the other customarily required opto-electronic components; detectors, waveguides, splitters, couplers, filters, etc., are fully executed in CMOS designs, as well. Continuous wave optical power is provided from off-chip, just as dc power is currently provided from off-chip. The initial commercial applications are optical 10Gb/s Ethernet, Infiniband, and other INTER-chip, communications applications. The question to be addressed in this talk, is whether silicon nano-photonics can now make the final jump, to INTRA-chip optical interconnects?