Optical Logic-in the Light of Computer Technology

The great success of silicon microelectronics has led advocates of many alternative technologies to aspire to replace it, at least in some applications. More bluntly, almost everyone who discovers some sort of instability or evidence of gain can think of an aspect of the discovery that has the potential to improve upon the performance of silicon electronics. These proposals are made, however, without an appreciation of the sources of the success of conventional microelectronics. An examination of current technology thus illuminates the barriers that new digital logic technologies must overcome. Digital logic systems must have large numbers of components. A practical system with a large number of components requires that the cost per component be low. The power per component must also be low and the reliability very high. Silicon microelectronics has been able to meet these requirements through miniaturization and integration. These same directions of progress have also conferred high speed on microelectro...

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