An intra-chip free-space optical interconnect

  • Authors:

  • Jing Xue;Alok Garg;Berkehan Ciftcioglu;Jianyun Hu;Shang Wang;Ioannis Savidis;Manish Jain;Rebecca Berman;Peng Liu;Michael Huang;Hui Wu;Eby Friedman;Gary Wicks;Duncan Moore

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;University of Rochester, Rochester,;University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 37th annual international symposium on Computer architecture
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Continued device scaling enables microprocessors and other systems-on-chip (SoCs) to increase their performance, functionality, and hence, complexity. Simultaneously, relentless scaling, if uncompensated, degrades the performance and signal integrity of on-chip metal interconnects. These systems have therefore become increasingly communications-limited. The communications-centric nature of future high performance computing devices demands a fundamental change in intra- and inter-chip interconnect technologies. Optical interconnect is a promising long term solution. However, while significant progress in optical signaling has been made in recent years, networking issues for on-chip optical interconnect still require much investigation. Taking the underlying optical signaling systems as a drop-in replacement for conventional electrical signaling while maintaining conventional packet-switching architectures is unlikely to realize the full potential of optical interconnects. In this paper, we propose and study the design of a fully distributed interconnect architecture based on free-space optics. The architecture leverages a suite of newly-developed or emerging devices, circuits, and optics technologies. The interconnect avoids packet relay altogether, offers an ultra-low transmission latency and scalable bandwidth, and provides fresh opportunities for coherency substrate designs and optimizations.