A brief history into photonics might suggest that the sub-discipline of nanophotonics still quiet an untapped market with much potential to be harnessed. A countable number of data points fill the the timeline from 1909 to the present. Inspiring the question that motivated this paper, why are there so few milestone moments in photonics over such a long period of time? Ultimately this question resulted in our review of nanophotonics integration with CMOS integrated circuits in response to Moore’s Law. Therefore, in this review we present our review of the modules in CMOS IC that are causing the slow down in Moore’s law, the nanophotonic analogs that may be viable replacements, and the breakthroughs in nanophotonics that have enabled these technological advancements.