As per OZ’s note, the latest presentation mentions RAM, I hadn’t seen a reference to this before.  This Taylor patent from last June may not be connected at all, but interesting nonetheless.  Maybe something to talk about while we wait!

Patent 9,684,193

June 20 2017

Optical closed loop microresonator and thyristor memory device

an excerpt from the patent:

The advantage gained is ultra-low power. The speed of read and write is identical to the SRAM. Clearly this DRAM has significant advantages which are: High speed operation, similar to SRAM cell. Selective operation of the cell as an SRAM cell or DRAM cell can be controlled by simply disabling the refresh cycle and the store voltage. The NV backup mode of operation is available here as well. Extremely low power operation is possible. Extremely high density as shown by the array layout (same as SRAM, NVRAM) No complex sense amps are required. The active of the thyristor device 111 is its own sense amp. Not limited by stored charge as in conventional DRAM. The thyristor device is an active device which can supply current instead of charge-active read. Finally, the DRAM, SRAM and NVRAM, have a photonic capability as well due to the optical writing and reading function capabilities of the device. This allows a linear array of thyristor memory elements 100 to be coupled to a single waveguide in order to detect and store bits of the optical signal carried by the waveguide. This is a perfect solution for the problem of optical data switching at the front of an optical router. These are photonic buffers. They can hold a frame of data (packet of bits) for several data cycles and then can be controlled to retransmit the data onto the network. 

The advantages of the thyristor memory cell 100 of the present invention are summarized in FIG. 31.

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