Cambridge LiFi chip tops 362 Gbps

This is real systems research, not just a speed stunt: the important result is that chip-scale optical wireless can be spatially multiplexed, energy efficient, and packaged small enough to look like an access-point primitive.

• –21 active VCSELs delivered 362.7 Gbps, with the paper projecting 431.8 Gbps if all 25 emitters had survived wire bonding
• –The beam-shaping optics are the key enabler: >90% uniformity at 2 m makes each beam usable as a separate spatial zone
• –The current bottleneck is the receiver, not the transmitter; the commercial photodetector capped the demo well below the VCSELs’ intrinsic bandwidth
• –This is promising for dense indoor infrastructure, but mobility, obstruction handling, and dynamic beam steering still need solving before it feels like Wi-Fi
• –The physics are attractive for congestion and security because the link does not bleed through walls, but deployment becomes an optical planning problem rather than a radio one