Bit-Parallel versus Bit-Serial Optical Interconnects

A.B. Ruighaver
Department of Computer Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3052, Australia.
tobias@cs.mu.oz.au

Abstract

The future of massively parallel processing depends on the successful application of optical communication technology and its ability to restore the balance between data processing and data transfer. PANDORA is a network architecture that uses a static scheduling of predetermined data transfer patterns to exploit the reduction of the data transfer delay on optical communication channels. Static scheduling of data transfers removes or hides the other overheads, such as routing and buffer control, which often are a major bottleneck in current interconnection networks.

Simulation results indicate that a dense PANDORA network with bit-parallel inter-connections offers a better performance than a fully-interconnected bit-serial interconnect using the same amount of connections. We propose an optical implementation of PANDORA based on the use of Wavelength Division Multiplexing to achieve bit-parallel data transfer on a single waveguide. This will reduce the number of physical connections and improve the cost-performance of bit-parallel networks even more.

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