Comparing and combining photonics and electronics in information transmission and processing

Photonic transmission capacities are now exceeding 1 Tb/s over a single fiber (the highest results today are around 3 Tb/s), this limit being achieved by several laboratories in 1996. These results were obtained by a combination of TDM, time division multiplexing and WDM, wavelength division multiplexing. This development has called for matching capabilities in the electronics interfaces, and this paper aims to briefly elucidate some of the issues involved.