In telecommunication systems, fiber optic is more widely used than copper wire channel, due their qualities of transmission, such as bandwidth and attenuation. Is it possible to override copper wire by fiber optic in all applications where do they compete? Can photonic technology put the electronic technology into obscurity?
Dear Edson,
The main benefits of copper wires over optical fibers are 1) copper wires have already been installed almost everywhere and reach almost every home (especially for the last/first mile) while the roll-out of optical fibers has not yet reached full steam and 2) cable installers are still not very comfortable and skilled in installing optical fibers. Electronics is preferable among optics because of the possibility of high-density integration, long-term data storage and implementation of complex systems. On the other hand, optics provides much better bandwidth-distance product for transmission systems and much higher data rates and capacities for both transmission and signal processing systems. It is also potentially more energy efficient. In my opinion, optical transmission and data processing systems can put the electronic technology into obscurity only if they become more practical and economical, which will be possible after the following milestones are reached: high-density photonic integration, long-term and random-access optical data storage and area-wide roll-out of optical fibers.
Hope this answer can be of some help.
Best regards,
Slavisa
Hi Partha and Stavisa!
Thanks for the comments. I think than we walk in the same road.
.Forget my old comment. It was poorly explained.
Thanks Dr. Edson Moschim, I am very much confident and hope that very shortly the optical computer will come commercially. What about your view?
Hi Partha!
I think so. Just a time question. Photonics devices have more processing speed than electronics devices, and no joule energy is dissipated, making possible greater components integration. Then, optical computer is a brief reality in the market.
Photonics devices are hereby used with optics. We all know that optical fiver can provide even more than THz bandwidth but our electronics components are not that much efficient to fully utilize that bandwidth, so photonics may be accomodate that bandwidth as well in future
Dear Mr. Arain,
I am fully agree with you regarding the utility of photonics. Again, photonics provides the advantages of inherent parallelism which also provide better
performance than electronics.
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