SAN FRANCISCO—In the next 40 years, Intel is planning to develop a range of new technology that will allow chips to communicate through pulses of light and allow users to wirelessly project the Internet onto large screens from tiny mobile devices.

That is the vision of the future that Justin Rattner, an Intel Senior Fellow and the chip maker's CTO, sees as he looks out at the next four decades. Since Intel just celebrated its 40^th anniversary, Rattner is using the Intel Developer Forum here to outline a vision for Intel for the next 40 years that goes well beyond transistors and CPUs.

The first major technological breakthrough that Rattner sees coming from Intel is in the field of photonics, where Intel and its research staff have been investing a serious amount of energy during the last several years. Photonics involves replacing the copper wires that have been traditionally used in microprocessors with tiny lasers that will transmit data across light pulses. So far, Intel has been able to demonstrate laser modules that send data at 40G bps.

Now, Rattner said, Intel is preparing demonstrate a second-generation hybrid silicon laser that will run with just 8 milliwatts. (A milliwatt is one-thousandth of a watt.) Intel has also created a monolithic chip that will allow engineers to integrate other photonic and electronic components into the silicon. The previous generation of silicon did not allow for this integration. If all goes according to Intel's plan, Rattner said he believes that photonic technology will enter the commercial market in about 2010.

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