guides modulators and photodetectors are
constructed with footprints

similar to those of wires circuits
and bonding pads is there a benefi

t to optical signaling in
high performance computing? Given that optic

al signaling
over even short distances offers definite advantages over

electrical signaling in skew reduction bandwidth enhancement
and

latency reduction can such signaling be used to achieve
improved syste

m performance? While these advantages seem
obvious the issue is decep

tively complex. In this lecture
I will focus on understanding this c

omplexity and what it
implies for optical interconnect both on and off

chip based
on my research in this field. I will show how difficult it

can be
to realize system level advantages within the constraints of a <

br>modern processor system already carefully designed to mask
such non

-idealities in electrical signaling. I will explain why it
is ineffect

ive to blindly replace on-chip electrical signaling wires
with optical

paths and expect to achieve overall benefits and
what sort of gains ma

y show real system improvement. I will
also consider how targeted appl

ication of optical interconnect
even on-chip may indeed improve syste

m performance. I will
conclude with a discussion of the relative requi

rements costs
and challenges that result when a practical system is c

onstructed
and how the best overall system performance might be achieve

d
with such real constraints.

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Apsel receive

d a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore in 2002. She is

currently the Clare Luce Boothe
Assistant Professor of Electrical and C

omputer Engineering
at Cornell University and heads the Optoelectronic

VLSI
Laboratory at Cornell. Her current research interests include

optoelectronic CMOS systems and architectures short distance
interconn

ects low power RF systems robust mixed mode circuit
design and high

speed CMOS interfaces. She holds two patents
has received a best paper
award at the 2000 Midwest Symposium
on Circuits and Systems a best pa

per award at ASYNC 2006
a Top Picks paper from IEEE MICRO in 2006 an

NSF Early
Career Award in 2004 and has been named to MIT Technology Review''s top 100 young innovators for 2004. She is also
an associate
editor of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and
Systems I a member of the
Science and Engineering Council
of the OSA and a member of the techni