Exploiting optical waveguides in general-purpose parallel computing

Martin H. Davis Jr.; Umakishore Ramachandran

doi:10.1117/12.983217

2 February 1993 Exploiting optical waveguides in general-purpose parallel computing

Martin H. Davis Jr., Umakishore Ramachandran

Proceedings Volume 1773, Photonics for Computers, Neural Networks, and Memories; (1993) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.983217
Event: San Diego '92, 1992, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

We motivate our interest in examining how optics can be used in a class of general purpose parallel computer architectures called Distributed Shared Memory (DSM). We describe an abstract DSM architecture called Beehive that incorporates a weak memory model called Buffered Consistency. We propose a specific optical implementation of Beehive called OBee. This optical implementation uses optical waveguides to implement an interconnection network called Optical Broadcast Rings (OBRs). The OBRs are used in OBee as part of the hybrid electronic/optical hardware support for cache coherency and three types of synchronization (locks, barriers, and combining F&OPs). We also use the OBRs to propose purely optical hardware support for the locks and barriers.

Citation Download Citation

Martin H. Davis Jr. and Umakishore Ramachandran "Exploiting optical waveguides in general-purpose parallel computing", Proc. SPIE 1773, Photonics for Computers, Neural Networks, and Memories, (2 February 1993); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.983217

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