Optoelectronic design of the simultaneous optical multiprocessor exchange bus (SOME-Bus)

Low latency, high bandwidth interconnecting networks that directly link arbitrary pairs of processing elements without contention are very desirable for parallel computers. The simultaneous optical multiprocessor exchange bus (SOME-Bus) based on a fiber optic interconnect is such a network. The SOME-Bus provides a dedicated channel for each processor for data output and thus eliminates global arbitration. Each processor can receive data simultaneously from all other processors in the system using an array of receivers. The architecture allow for simultaneous multicast and broadcast messages using several processors with zero setup time and no global scheduling. In this paper, we discuss the design of a possible opto-electronic implementation of the SOME-Bus along with an optical power budget analysis. Slant Bragg fiber grains arranged to couple light out of a fiber ribbon cable into an array of amorphous silicon detectors vertically integrated on a silicon are presented as a low cost novel means of interconnecting 10 to 120 processors.