That blazing speed is made possible by a prototype chip that IBM calls the Holey Optochip. Based on a normal semiconductor CMOS chip, it gets its name from the 48 holes that IBM's engineers drilled into it. Within those holes, they put optical modules -- tiny devices that can transimt or receive light information -- creating a compact transceiver that can transmit information eight times faster than any other optical component ever made.
It's important to remember that this is chip speed we're talking about, and the actual speed of any system connected to it will be slower due to interconnects, latency and whatever software is driving it. Nonetheless, it's a remarkable achievement for optical technology. Besides entire libraries, the chip can transfer an entire HD movie 500 times over every second, IBM says.
Optical technology has the promise of being faster and more efficient than your typical wire. IBM's Holey discovery is definitely both, with an incredible transfer rate and record power efficiency, the company says. The transceiver consumers just 5 watts -- or about a twelfth of an everyday 60-watt light bulb.
The momentum behind using optics -- as opposed to typical semiconductor and metal circuits -- in microcircuitry is growing. Sometimes called "photonics" or "integrated optics," the field has shown its viability over the past decade with demonstrations like IBM's. Just last year, researchers at separate institutions showed an graphene-based optical modulator that's scalable to 500GHz and an "anti-laser" that can manipulate light at microscopic levels.
While most projections don't see optical technology becoming the norm in personal computing until 2020 or so, IBM says its speedy transceiver tech is feasible in the "near term." That doesn't mean your cable modem is going to get it soon, but perhaps some data centers from Google or Amazon might be riding some significant optical tech in a few years.