Recent advances in the development of optical interconnect technologies suggest the possible emergence of optical interconnects within distributed shared memory (DSM) machines in the near future. Moreover, current developments in wavelength tunable devices could soon allow for the fabrication of low-cost, adaptable interconnection networks with varying switching times. It is the objective of this paper to investigate whether such reconfigurable networks can boost the performance of the DSM machines further. In this respect, we propose a system concept of a passive optical broadcasting component to be used as the scalable key element in such a reconfigurable network. We briefly discuss the necessary opto-electronic components and the limitations they impose on network performance. We show through detailed full-system simulations of benchmark executions, that the proposed system architecture can provide a significant speedup for shared-memory machines, even when taking into account the limitations imposed by the opto-electronics and the optical broadcast component

Chip integration has allowed for many years already to miniaturize optical systems into photonic circuits, improving in performance and robustness while decreasing cost and weight. Traditional applications have been telecom and datacom components, but as technology matures in these markets, new emerging applications arise on healthcare and biochemistry sensing. From optical coherence tomography (OCT) medical instrumentation, to lab‐on‐a‐chip diagnostics, spectrometry or flow cytometry, many new integration platforms and devices are being demonstrated and commercialized.

Photonic networks-on-chip have emerged as a viable solution for interconnecting multicore computer architectures in a power-efficient manner. Current architectures focus on large messages, however, which are not compatible with the coherence traffic found on chip multiprocessor networks. In this paper, we introduce a reconfigurable optical interconnect in which the topology is adapted automatically to the evolving traffic situation. This allows a large fraction of the (short) coherence messages to use the optical links, making our technique a better match for CMP networks when compared to existing solutions. We also evaluate the performance and power efficiency of our architecture using an assumed physical implementation based on ultra-low power optical switching devices and under realistic traffic load conditions.

In this paper, the evolution and current status of generic photonic integration model, from a fabless user perspective, is reviewed. The manufacturers and technologies are described, alongside with photonic chips created by the authors following this model.