The bottle-neck of microelectronics and the demand of the development of information technology have accelerated the research on optical information processing and optoelectronic integration on Si-based material. The success of high-quality Si-based light sources will make a great impact on optoelectronic and information industry. Limited by indirect band structure, nature silicon has very low light-emission efficiency, which slows down the application of Si-based light sources. Several approaches have been proposed to obtain silicon luminescence, including porous silicon, silicon nanocrystals, Er3+-doped silicon nanocrystals and stimulated Raman scattering. Various approaches of silicon luminescence research in recent years are reviewed and the characteristic and achievement of different approaches are introduced. It is believed that breakthrough in Si-based light sources will be made and new technology revolution will be started in the near future by the development of device manufacture and the improvement of light-emission efficiency of silicon.