Design of a reconfigurable optical interconnect for large-scale multiprocessor networks

Communication between processors and memories has always been a limiting factor in making efficient computing architectures with large processor counts. Reconfigurable interconnection networks can help in this respect, since they can adapt the interconnect to the changing communication requirements imposed by the running application, and optical technology and photonic integration allow for an easy implementation of such adaptable systems. In this paper, we present a proposed reconfigurable interconnection network in the context of distributed shared-memory multiprocessors. We show through full-system simulation of benchmark executions that the proposed system architecture can provide a significant speedup for shared-memory machines, even when physical limitations due to low-cost optical components are introduced. We propose then a reconfigurable optical interconnect implementation, making use of tunable sources and a selective broadcasting component, and we report on the first fabricated optical components of the design: refractive microlenses, fiber connectors, microprism holders and alignment plates