Polymer Photonics The Next Green Wave
Post# of 871
Today’s computers use Electrons on Silicon, the Light (Laser) in today’s optic world is produced by Indium Phosphide. Because of the speed restrictions on those materials (Silicon Photonics) the industries solution to date has been redundancy, in other words to produce speeds of 100 Gigabit per second they are simply using more of the same devices 4 x 25 or 2 x 50. Currently Lightwaves material is at about 100 gig with a Single modulator. While the rest of the industry was working on Silicon Photonics Lightwave submitted and received 51 Patents to lock up the Polymer Photonics space.
This is where it where it gets exciting, other materials are not as sensitive as Lightwave Logic's Polymer material so todays modulators require more electricity than the 1’s and 0’s rolling off the silicon can provide, therefore to boost the signal strength today’s devices are using a Driver. Lightwave has a Patent on a Direct Drive Modulator, so not only does this remove a component (Driver) on the modulator it also saves on the power 4 volts x 4 = 16 volts vs. Lightwave Logics 1 volt +/-, and reduces the number of devices generating heat (which requires Huge A.C. Units and that is why data centers are always next to Power plants).
Soon The industry is soon moving to 400 gig and 800 gig and when you look inside the industries proposed devices you will see ridicules redundancy and giant heat sinks to dissipate the heat produced by these power-hungry devices It reminds me of the 16-cylinder race cars that cannot touch the 4 cylinder race cars of today.
The CEO of the company has recently been Elected to National Academy of Inventors (250 plus patents) and has worked over the past few years to lock up this space, Photonics is the future and Polymers are the solution. Fred Leonberger who sits on the board is credited by many as the grandfather of today’s modulator technology is guiding the device team. Joe Miller Credited with saving Corning (the world’s largest fiber optic company) also sits on the board and Prior to Corning he was the Senior Vice President of Dupont Polymers.
I liken this to Edison’s D.C. vs. Teslas A.C. battle back in the day. Lightwave is under multiple NDA’s and so they are very tight lipped about exactly where they stand with the titans of the industry.
I have invested in and followed this company for almost 20 years the reason for the article is recently the CEO did a Commercialization Presentation so it my belief that they have the required patents to come out into the open.
The World has a Huge Problem and Polymer Photonics looks to be the Solution.
Summary
Reduces Power.
Increased Communications Speeds.
Compatible with todays semiconductor plants.
Compatible with todays materials.
Doubles the Speed and Halves the device voltage.