<title>Optical data communication compel the design of a new class of storage media</title>

Abstract

The use of Optical Data Transfer Systems [ODTS] is an established fact in the field of telecommunication, but still no breakthrough has taken place for the implementation in next generation Parallel Computers. High speed serial data transfer systems, carried out with singular components for both the transmitting [Electro-Optic Transducers: EOTs] and the receiving [Opto-Electric Transducers: OETsJ side, already serve the telecommunication sector for a long time. A Laser as an EOT, a monomode glass fiber as a transmission medium and a PIN photodiode as an OET pretty soon allow a data throughput rate of several TerraHz.Parallel Processing however imply a simultaneous transfer and storage of a large number of computer words, of which the width can vary from 64 bits till a multiple ["W"] of it.A number of problems announce themselves if an attempt is made to combine the two in principal different technologies of data transport. Moving a parallel computer word through a serial data link at a constant throughput rate of "T" word/sec. coerce the processing rate at electrical side to increase with a factor "W". The transfer rate "W*T" is essential to execute the parallel ["W"J to serial and serial to parallel conversion. The assembly of the bulk of EOT and OET components, the drain away of the heat dissipation and the verification of the increasmg influence of EMI and crosstalk, in case ultra wide band signals are used, are tedious attendant problems. Implementing fibers only do not guarantee a solution in case the data has to be distributed over a large amount of parallel channels. Piled flat-cable like fiber bundles in combination with free space distributing techniques offer a solution in most cases.Integrating a new class of Opto-Electric Logic Elements in an ODTS enables an optical parallel transfer and storage of data; in this way improving the parallelism in next generation computers.