Modular Opto-Mechanical Design of Free-Space Optical Interconnect System for Massively Parallel Processing

Abstract

Free-space optical interconnections can provide parallel access for many communication patterns with a large bandwidth[1, 2]. The challenge in the realization of such systems relies in finding good solution for the alignment and packaging of the electro-optical components. We present a new modular building block that will address these challenges in a free-space optical network for massively parallel processing (MPP). Our component and system ideas offer a simple method to fabricate and build the optical network assuring reliable and convenient alignment and packaging. We use micro-lens arrays which are pre-aligned and packaged as modular building blocks to relay optical beams from one module to the next. We can apply our modular building block ideas to our previous system of a 64-channel free-space optical interconnection[1] and its wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) extensions[3] to realize a more reliable and easier to build system. In the current network architecture, as well as in the previous ones, we use a nonblocking and reconfigurable interconnection cached network (ICN)[4].