Optical clinical laboratory IT solutions may be cheaper in years to come

The cost of clinical laboratory IT solutions might be expected to fall over time as progress in technology leads to greater manufacturing efficiency.

However, in the case of clinical laboratory IT solutions built using optical chips - rather than conventional electronic chips - price reductions could arrive sooner than usual.

Concerted effort is being put into developing standards for the optical chip market, as well as improving the design process itself through the use of new science software.

Meint Smit, professor of optical communication technology at Eindhoven University of Technology, explains that science software has already minimised the cost of creating new electronic chips.

"Microelectronics cost a few cents per square millimetre of chip, as the technology is mature and highly standardised," the professor says.

"In addition ... we have sophisticated software for the fast and accurate design of the chips."

The university, which describes itself as being "where innovation starts", is now leading the PARADIGM project to extend these advantages to optical networking.