2-D Optical Multistage Interconnection Networks

Abstract

2 -D Optical Multistage Interconnection NetworksShing -Hong Lin, Tno as F. Krile and John F. WalkupDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Optical Systems Laboratory,Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409AbstractThis paper discusses the need for 2 -D multistage optical interconnection networksin parallel computing systems and demonstrates the benefits obtained from a 2 -D multi-stage perfect shuffle network.IntroductionOne of the most important, yet least understood, aspects of parallel processing isthe effect of interconnecting the processing elements (PE's). Efficient communicationamong these PE's is recognized as the key to increasing the computation speed andsimplifying the complexity of computing systems. Recently, a number of optical inter-connection networks have been proposed and demonstrated such as crossbar networks' andperfect shuffle networks2'3. In spite of their feasibility, however, these networksonly deal with 1 -D data and ignore the inherent 3 -D characteristics of opticalsystems. The other major problem with interconnection networks is to design a cost -effective network. Although crossbars (CB's) are ideal networks for interconnection,crossbar networks of large size are very difficult to implement either in optics orelectronics. An alternate approach is to design multistage networks, with each stagehaving a number of crossbars of small size. Examples are the perfect shuffle net -work4, baseline networks, and the Benes network6. Based on the above noted reasons,we here propose 2 -D multistage optical interconnection networks (MIN's) and inves-tigate their advantages and applications.In Sec. II we give a model for a 2 -D MIN and discuss its flexibility.