1. Had they demonstrated the optical processing chips could be manufactured with existing processes by building a working chip?
2. Did the chip(s) in question only route networking signals or were they capable of more general purpose computing?
There's been plenty of research into integrating optical connects into a silicon chip, but this is the first general purpose chip I know of which has done so with existing manufacturing methods, and to me both of those are important milestones.
EDIT: Looks like IBM managed to beat the Berkeley team, appears they got something very similar working in 2012:
http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?i...
They had a working setup for demonstration, also we were allowed to hold the chips, also you wouldn't invite the biggest german networking companies for lunch without having something to sell. So basically yes.
> 2. Did the chip(s) in question only route networking signals or were they capable of more general purpose computing?
Those chips were limited to route networking signals chip to chip or chip to backlane. If I remember right CompassOS choosed networking to get production ready as fast a possible, propably also on the interessents of their investors who were mainly network focused (e.g. Cisco, Comcast and T-Venture).
Edit: So Berkeley is again selling already developed Innovations as their accomplishment. “This is a milestone. It’s the first processor that can use light to communicate with the external world,”
As for Berkeley, yes it appears their PR department is telling lies. Even though it's promising work, I do wish they could've announced it in a different way. Silicon photonics is an interesting field, I don't need to be told about world firsts to find it interesting.