Luxtera has announced a new class of silicon chips with the potential to blend the low-cost manufacturing prowess of the semiconductor world with the ultrahigh-speed potential of laser optical networking.

The convergence is expected to have a major impact on the computing and communications industries, both in the design of future computers and on drastically less expensive networks that will make applications of such fiber optic networks to homes commercially viable.

Luxtera plan to introduce chips that would make inexpensive 10-gigabit office networks possible in April 2006. The 10-gigabit network would be a thousand times faster than those today.