The first commercial product from startup Luxtera Inc. is targeting the data center, as expected, with a new type of cable called Blazar. (See Luxtera Intros Active Cable.)

    Luxtera introduced Blazar with a press release this week and will probably talk more about it next week at Hot Interconnects -- not a consenting-adults-only social networking site but an annual geekfest for electrical engineers in the communications space.

    Alongside Intel Corp.(Nasdaq: INTC - message board) and some universities like UCLA and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) , Luxtera has spent the past few years talking about the possibility of building optical components by using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes -- i.e., employing the same silicon and the same manufacturing process as used for most other chips. (See Luxtera Chases Silicon Photonics, Luxtera Launches Silicon Optics, and Intel Pushes Silicon Modulator .)

    The result, still a long-term dream, would be optics that could be produced more cheaply than today and in greater quantities. This would allow the kind of massive integration that Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN - message board) has pulled off -- only using common silicon, rather than more expensive indium phosphide (InP).

    That's all great, but Luxtera, which was founded in 2001 and has had $46 million in funding, has to pay the bills by finding a more immediate market. (See Luxtera Launches Silicon Optics.) Blazar, and other cables like it, are going to be the company's revenue source for the immediate future. "Over time, we're going to propagate this technology across a mix of cables and modules," says Marek Tlakla, Luxtera's vice president of marketing.

    Eventually, the company might get into mixing its CMOS optics with other chips, opening the door to products like a one-chip network interface card that combines optics with Ethernet piece-parts. But that's "a couple of years out," Tlalka says.