An intra-chip free-space optical interconnect

Xue, Jing; Garg, Ankush; Çiftçioğlu, Berkehan; Hu, Jianyun; Wang, Shang; Savidis, Ioannis; Jain, Manish; Berman, Rebecca; Liu, Peng; Huang, Michael C.; Wu, Hui; Friedman, Eby G.; Wicks, G. W.; Moore, Duncan T.

doi:10.1145/1815961.1815975

Cited by 50 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This makes NoC (network-on-chip) a very hot topic of research [26], [27], [28], [29]. As the number of cores increases, how will the interconnect evolve [30]?…”

Section: P Erformancementioning

confidence: 99%

Multicore processors: Status quo and future directions

Zahran

2014

2014 10th International Computer Engineering Conference (ICENCO)

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Words like multicore, manycore, Moore's law end ing, have been around for more than a decade. How do these words describe the current status quo of computer architecture?How do they give a glimpse of the future? In this paper, we will present the status quo of the current multicore/manycore processors, and the expected future directions in light of several advances both in process technology and in system software.

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“…This makes NoC (network-on-chip) a very hot topic of research [26], [27], [28], [29]. As the number of cores increases, how will the interconnect evolve [30]?…”

Section: P Erformancementioning

confidence: 99%

Multicore processors: Status quo and future directions

Zahran

2014

2014 10th International Computer Engineering Conference (ICENCO)

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“…The current copper based electrical interconnects face serious challenges to meet such demands [2,3]. Optical communication systems are emerging as alternative approaches at several levels including chip-to-chip [4][5][6], intra-board [7,8], board-to-board [9][10][11][12], card-to-backplane [13,14] and rack-to-rack interconnects [15,16]. Optical interconnects consisting of arrays of Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) and Photo-detectors (PDs) have been shown to be superior to copper based electrical interconnects in terms of cost, power, and bandwidth [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-cost board-to-board optical interconnects using molded polymer waveguide with 45 degree mirrors and inkjet-printed micro-lenses as proximity vertical coupler

Lin¹,

Hosseini²,

Dou³

et al. 2013

Opt. Express

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We demonstrate intra- and inter-board level optical interconnects using polymer waveguides and waveguide couplers consisting of both 45 degree total internal reflection (TIR) mirrors and inkjet-printed micro-lenses. Surface normal couplers consisting of 50 µm × 50 µm waveguides with embedded 45 degree mirrors are fabricated using a nickel mold imprint. Micro-lenses, 70 µm in diameter, are inkjet-printed on top of the mirrors. We characterize the optical transmission between waveguides located on different boards in terms of insertion loss, mirror coupling loss, and free space propagation loss as a function of interconnection distance in free space. Each mirror contributes 1.88 dB loss to the system, corresponding to 65% efficiency. The printed micro-lenses improve the transmission by 2-4 dB (per coupler). Data transmission at 10 Gbps reveals that inter-board interconnects has a bit error rate (BER) of 1.1 × 10(-10) and 6.2 × 10(-13) without and with the micro-lenses, respectively.

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“…Recently, we proposed an intra-chip optical interconnect for future multi-core processors based on free-space optics and 3-D integrated photonic devices [12,13]. The main objective is to construct an all-to-all communication fabric with high bandwidth density, low latency, and good energy efficiency without routing or switching.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3-D integrated heterogeneous intra-chip free-space optical interconnect

Çiftçioğlu¹,

Berman²,

Wang³

et al. 2012

Opt. Express

Self Cite

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This paper presents the first chip-scale demonstration of an intra-chip free-space optical interconnect (FSOI) we recently proposed. This interconnect system provides point-to-point free-space optical links between any two communication nodes, and hence constructs an all-to-all intra-chip communication fabric, which can be extended for inter-chip communications as well. Unlike electrical and other waveguide-based optical interconnects, FSOI exhibits low latency, high energy efficiency, and large bandwidth density, and hence can significantly improve the performance of future many-core chips. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of the proposed FSOI interconnect, and compare it to a waveguide-based optical interconnect with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). It shows that the FSOI system can achieve significantly lower loss and higher energy efficiency than the WDM system, even with optimistic assumptions for the latter. A 1×1-cm2 chip prototype is fabricated on a germanium substrate with integrated photodetectors. Commercial 850-nm GaAs vertical-cavity-surface-emitting-lasers (VCSELs) and fabricated fused silica microlenses are 3-D integrated on top of the substrate. At 1.4-cm distance, the measured optical transmission loss is 5 dB, the crosstalk is less than -20 dB, and the electrical-to-electrical bandwidth is 3.3 GHz. The latter is mainly limited by the 5-GHz VCSEL.

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An intra-chip free-space optical interconnect

Cited by 50 publications

References 44 publications

Multicore processors: Status quo and future directions

Multicore processors: Status quo and future directions

Low-cost board-to-board optical interconnects using molded polymer waveguide with 45 degree mirrors and inkjet-printed micro-lenses as proximity vertical coupler

3-D integrated heterogeneous intra-chip free-space optical interconnect

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