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The technology - which is being investigated by several chip research labs and manufacturers - replaces the silicon interconnect between chips with beams of light.

This removes a considerable bottleneck in computing performance, allowing manufacturers to create supercomputers comprised of grids of low-cost chips that interconnect

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at high speeds. Not only can this be achieved at a fraction of the cost of conventional supercomputers, but also a fraction of the physical space.

"Optical communications could be a truly game-changing technology - an elegant way to continue impressive performance gains while completely changing the economics of large-scale silicon production," claims Greg Papadopoulos, chief technology officer at Sun.

DARPA's investment aims to reduce the cost of deploying such technology, potentially helping it with processor-intensive applications such as energy exploration, biotechnology and weather modeling.

The money will also help Sun keep pace with better financed rivals, such as Intel, which last year claimed to have made a significant breakthrough of its own with optical interconnects.