Roadmap Document

The MIT Communications Technology Roadmap program, sponsored by the Microphotonics Center Industry Consortium, was commissioned to evaluate the vast array of new technology that has disrupted the telecommunications industry--to serve as a guide for R&D investment and for the rational restructuring of the industry. The CTR document, Microphotonics: Hardware for the Information Age,, more than four years after its initiation, has the same motivation, although the context has changed to reflect today's market. The CTR program is guided by industry-led Technology Working Groups (TWGs), with the support of MIT faculty and student analyses.

A technology roadmap represents a consensus vision and a guide to its realization. The process develops a framework for understanding how technology, markets, and policy dynamics interact. Incorporating two key methodologies-analytical modeling tools and industry-based working groups-the CTR program focuses on the definition of enabling technologies. MIT's Microphotonics Center is pleased to present this document, Microphotonics: Hardware for the Information Age,, which charts a course for the future of photonics technology and represents the culmination of a four-year effort by the Communications Technology Roadmap program.