REFLECTIVE OPTICAL RING-ARRAY INTERCONNECTS - AN OPTICAL-SYSTEM DESIGN STUDY

We present a reflective optical ring-array interconnect architecture f or handling data routings under various single-instruction-multiple-da ta array processing environments. The proposed architecture can perfor m clock-skew-free optical data communications for either a fixed-degre e model, such as a nearest-neighbor network, or a variable-degree mode l, such as a plus-minus-2i network. It is found that space-variant rou tings, which are difficult to perform in a rectangular-array opto-elec tronic integrated circuit, can easily be mapped into rotation-invarian t routines for optical implementation by a ring opto-electronic integr ated-circuit array. Our system study also shows that the design of the optical imaging system for interconnecting a ring array of nodes is m uch easier than that for interconnecting a conventional rectangular-ar ray topology. Design principles for both the individual optical compon ents and the entire optical system are described. The optical network performance parameters, such as the diffraction- and aberration-relate d processing capabilities, the optical transmitter coupling efficiency , the optical free-space power distribution loss, and the power-depend ent element bit rate, are analyzed.