Two-Dimensional Optical Buses for Massively Parallel Processing

Optical interconnections using two-dimensional waveguides are presented. Light beams whose incident angles are greater than the critical angle of a waveguide can propagate within that waveguide, which behaves as an optical bus. Such optical buses are suitable for massively parallel processing because they have a large number fan-outs and no skew. Estimated propagation distance in the waveguides is roughly 500 mm. One to several hundred interconnections may be achieved. Glass plates with concave lenses are used to demonstrate bus operations.