Intel's Avalanche Photodetector

I don't know if I would have guess this one, but Intel, as apparent to this site / press release I found is set to be a force in the optical switching market. Last December they announced their advancements in Silicon Photonics with the Avalanche Photodetector (APD).

"Intel Labs researchers have made another advance in the field of Silicon Photonics by achieving world-record performance using a silicon-based Avalanche Photodetector (APD) that could lower costs and improve performance as compared to commercially available optical devices. "

I ran across this story here, but then read more at the official Intel page for Silicon Photonics. Another nice blog post on a 200 Gbps silicon photonic integrated chip can be found here.