A 3-DIMENSIONAL OPTICAL INTERCONNECTION NETWORK WITH DISTRIBUTED CONTROL

We present a design for an optical free-space, crossbar-like interconn ection network. Based on a 1 to N routeing switch, we give details of a possible set-up utilizing three-dimensional space. One switch is ass ociated with each processing element (PE), and the routeing is done in a distributed manner by being incorporated in the action of transmiss ion. The light is thereafter directed by multifaceted holograms. Paral lel algorithms with communication locality can benefit from the unifor m distribution of PEs in space, by minimizing the time latency of thei r communications.