For ultra-high-speed single media parallel interconnects, an all optical single fiber WDM format of transmitting parallel bits rather than a fiber ribbon format-where parallel bits are sent through corresponding parallel fibers in a ribbon format, can be the media of choice. Here, we shall discuss the realization of a multi-km x gbytedsec bit-parallel WDM (BP-WDM) single fiber link. The distance-speed product of this single fiber link is more than several orders of magnitude higher than that of a fiber ribbon link. The design of a 12 bitparallel channels WDM system operating at 1 Gbit/sec per channel rate through a single fiber will first be presented. Experimental results for a two channel system operating at that rate are given. Further improvement of distance-speed product for the BP-WDM link can be obtained with JPL's newly developed 20 Gbitdsec per channel laser diode array transmitter. Also, new computer simulation results on how a large amplitude co-propagating pulse may induce pulse compression on all the co-propagating data pulses, thereby improving the shaping of these pulses for a WDM system, will be presented and discussed. The existence of WDM solitons is also shown.
Background and IntroductionFor high performance computing environments, clusters of MPP supercomputers can be envisioned. This concept elevates the cluster computing model to a new level. In this case, not only is high bandwidth and low latency required, but now inter-channel message synchronization also becomes important among the parallel network channels entering the machine -especially if all machines are tightly coupled together to work on one large problem. In the limit, the aggregate bandwidth required to interconnect two large MPP supercomputers approaches the bisection bandwidth of the internal communication network of the machine.For example, in a 2"-node hypercube interconnected MPP architecture, there would be up to 2"-l links between each half of the machine (e.g., 1024 processor nodes would have 512 links at 200MB/s per link, or 102 GB/s total).The need for a single media parallel interconnect is apparent. Thus, the all optical single fiber WDM format of transmitting parallel bits rather than a fiber ribbon format may be the media of choice. This single fiber bit parallel wavelength link can be used to extend the (speed-distance) product of emerging cluster computer networks, such as, the MyriNet, SCI, Hippi-6400, ShuffleNet, etc. Time alignment of the bit-parallel pulses is of paramount importance.Unlike the usual wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) format where input parallel pulses are first converted into a series of single pulses which are then launched on different wavelength beams into a single-mode fiber, the bitparallel (BP) WDM format was proposed [1,2]. Under this BP-WDM format, no parallel to serial conversion of the input signal is necessary, parallel pulses are launched simultaneously on different wavelength beams. Time alignment of the pulses for a given signal byte is very important.There exists a competin...