Photonics: A Potential Game-Changer

For decades, computer and smartphone circuits have steadily become smaller and more powerful, following the trend known as Moore’s Law. However, this era of consistent progress is nearing its end due to physical limits, such as the maximum number of transistors that can fit on a chip and the heat generated by densely packed components. As a result, the pace of performance improvements is slowing, even as the demand for computational power continues to grow with data-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

To overcome these challenges, innovative solutions are required. One promising approach lies in photonics, which uses light instead of electricity to process information. Photonics offers significant advantages, including lower energy consumption and faster data transmission with reduced latency.

One of the most promising approaches is in-memory computing, which requires the use of photonic memories. Passing light signals through these memories makes it possible to perform operations nearly instantaneously. But solutions proposed for creating such memories have faced challenges such as low switching speeds and limited programmability.