  Low latency and low power consumption are the main goals for our future
networks. Fiber optics are already widely used for their faster speed. We want
to investigate if optical decoding has further advantages to reaching future
goals. We have investigated and compared the decoding latency and power
consumption of an optical chip and its electronic counterpart built with
MOSFETs. We have found that optical processing has a speed and power
consumption benefit. For future networks and real-time applications, this can
bring huge advantages over our current electronic processors.
