A Scalable Silicon Photonic Chip-Scale Optical Switch for High Performance Computing Systems

Abstract

This paper discusses the architecture and provides performance studies of a silicon photonic chip-scale optical switch for scalable interconnect network in high performance computing systems. The proposed switch exploits optical wavelength parallelism and wavelength routing characteristics of an Arrayed Waveguide Grating Router (AWGR) to allow contention resolution in the wavelength domain. Simulation results from a cycle-accurate network simulator indicate that, even with only two transmitter/receiver pairs per node, the switch exhibits lower end-to-end latency and higher throughput at high (>90%) input loads compared with electronic switches. On the device integration level, we propose to integrate all the components (ring modulators, photodetectors and AWGR) on a CMOS-compatible silicon photonic platform to ensure a compact, energy efficient and cost-effective device. We successfully demonstrate proof-of-concept routing functions on an 88 prototype fabricated using foundry services provided by OpSIS-IME.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 24, 2013
Accession Number
AD1000608

Entities

People

  • Katsunari Okamoto
  • Roberto Proietti
  • Runxiang Yu
  • S. J. Ben Yoo
  • Stanley Cheung
  • Yawei Yin
  • Yuliang Li

Organizations

  • University of California

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computer Communications
  • Couplings
  • Data Centers
  • Detectors
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Electronic Components
  • Frequency
  • High Performance Computing
  • Measurement
  • Modulation
  • Modulators
  • Optical Interconnects
  • Packet Loss
  • Photonic Devices
  • Photonics
  • Simulations
  • Simulators

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Integrated Circuit Design and Technology.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Microelectromechanical Systems