Abstract
Optical interconnects enabled by silicon microring-based transceivers offer great potential for short-reach data communication in future high-performance computing systems. However, microring resonators are prone to process variations that harm both the energy efficiency and the yield of the fabricated transceivers. Especially in the application scenario where a batch of transceivers are fabricated for assembling multiple optical networks, how the transceivers are mixed and matched can directly impact the average energy efficiency and the yield of the networks assembled. In this study, we propose transceiver grouping for assembling communication networks from a pool of fabricated transceivers, aiming to optimize the network energy efficiency and the yield. We evaluated our grouping algorithms by wafer-scale measurement data of microring-based transceivers, as well as synthetic data generated based on an experimentally validated variation model. Our experimental results demonstrate that optimized grouping achieves significant improvement in the network energy efficiency and the yield across a wide range of network configurations, compared to a baseline strategy that randomly groups the transceivers.
Highlights
O PTICAL interconnects are promising alternatives to electrical ones in modern high-performance computing (HPC) systems to accommodate traffic-intensive applications [1]
We evaluated our simulated annealing (SA)- and Pareto simulated annealing (PSA)-based algorithms for transceiver grouping based on the data of 64 measured transceivers and up to 256 synthetic transceivers for a wide range of network configurations
We target the application scenario where fabricated microring-based transceivers are grouped for assembling optical networks of multiple nodes
Summary
O PTICAL interconnects are promising alternatives to electrical ones in modern high-performance computing (HPC) systems to accommodate traffic-intensive applications [1]. 1) demand excessive power for variation compensation or 2) fail to support a target data rate, worsening the average energy efficiency, the product uniformity, and the yield of the networks assembled. We observed from wafer-scale measurement data of microring-based transceivers that, due to the distinct variation profile of each transceiver, optical networks assembled from different transceivers will have different energy efficiency. We propose transceiver grouping which mixes and matches a pool of fabricated transceivers to assemble networks of equal size, aiming to optimize the average energy efficiency, the uniformity, and the yield of the networks assembled. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed grouping algorithms achieve significant improvement in all three objectives, namely the average energy efficiency, the uniformity, and the yield of the networks assembled, compared to a baseline strategy that randomly groups the transceivers.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
