Silicon photonics, a wedding of silicon-based CMOS technology and photonics, is a emerging technology that could dramatically change the world beyond imagination. Few days ago, IBM announced a significant breakthrough in silicon photonics that could be used to build a supercomputer on a chip (Ref). In other words, the future supercomputer can be as small as a laptop. IBM has invented a new silicon Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator that is 100 to 1,000 times smaller in size compared to previously demonstrated modulators of its kind, paving the way for many such devices and eventually complete optical routing networks to be integrated onto a single chip. IBM has produced a video clip on their new modulator. You could watch this video clip below. On the other hand, IBM’s archrival Intel is also actively pursuing the silicon photonics technology. In July, Intel announced a 40G silicon modulator. Intel is also the first one to make a continuous silicon laser (Ref).

On the local scene, I am surprise to learn that Singapore also has a bite on this new technology. Two weeks ago, Lightwire, a US-based provider of high-bandwidth interconnects, announced the transfer of its silicon photonics process to Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing. The proprietary process is jointly developed between LightWire, Singapore’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. It can be used to produce ultra-high speed silicon photonics devices of 10 to 100 Gbps(Ref).

Singapore Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and Japanese Unisantis-Electronics have jointly announced a collaborative research agreement to develop next generation three-dimensional surrounding-gate transistor (SGT). The development will be mainly carried out in Singapore, using state of the art semiconductor facilities in IME (Ref). I did a little googling on SGT and I was surprise to find that the idea of SGT was proposed by Fujio Masuoka’s team 20 years ago (Ref). The idea was never commercialized because it was too far ahead of its time and there was still plenty of room for conventional planar 2D transistor to scale down back then. However, the conventional planar transistor architecture will be soon running out of steam in the next decade as it hits the physical limitations. Therefore, in my opinion, 3D transistor or quasi-3D transistor architectures will be likely to commercialize in the next decade.

The IME-Unisantis SGT project is led none other by the originator of SGT and Unisantis’ Chief Technology Officer Fujio Masuoka. Fujio Masuoka is most famous and remembered for his revolutionary invention of Flash memory in 1980s when he was still working in Toshiba. However, Toshiba did not appreciate the value of his invention and even tried repeatedly to move him to a position where he could do no further research. It was Intel that first commercialized Masuoka’s invention and became the world leader in NOR flash memory (Ref). Toshiba finally conceded and Masuoka left Toshiba in 1994. In 2004, Fujio Masuoka even sued Toshiba for what he considered his rightful cut of its profits on flash. The lawsuit was finally settled out of court after Toshiba agreed to pay 87 million yen to Fujio Masuoka (Ref).