
Proceedings Paper
Chip-scale integrated optical interconnects: a key enabler for future high-performance computingFormat | Member Price | Non-Member Price |
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Paper Abstract
High Performance Computing (HPC) systems are putting ever-increasing demands on the throughput efficiency of their
interconnection fabrics. In this paper, the limits of conventional metal trace-based inter-chip interconnect fabrics are
examined in the context of state-of-the-art HPC systems, which currently operate near the 1 GFLOPS/W level. The
analysis suggests that conventional metal trace interconnects will limit performance to approximately 6 GFLOPS/W in
larger HPC systems that require many computer chips to be interconnected in parallel processing architectures. As the
HPC communications bottlenecks push closer to the processing chips, integrated Optical Interconnect (OI) technology
may provide the ultra-high bandwidths needed at the inter- and intra-chip levels. With inter-chip photonic link energies
projected to be less than 1 pJ/bit, integrated OI is projected to enable HPC architecture scaling to the 50 GFLOPS/W
level and beyond - providing a path to Peta-FLOPS-level HPC within a single rack, and potentially even Exa-FLOPSlevel
HPC for large systems. A new hybrid integrated chip-scale OI approach is described and evaluated. The concept
integrates a high-density polymer waveguide fabric directly on top of a multiple quantum well (MQW) modulator array
that is area-bonded to the Silicon computing chip. Grayscale lithography is used to fabricate 5 μm x 5 μm polymer
waveguides and associated novel small-footprint total internal reflection-based vertical input/output couplers directly
onto a layer containing an array of GaAs MQW devices configured to be either absorption modulators or photodetectors.
An external continuous wave optical "power supply" is coupled into the waveguide links. Contrast ratios were measured
using a test rider chip in place of a Silicon processing chip. The results suggest that sub-pJ/b chip-scale communication
is achievable with this concept. When integrated into high-density integrated optical interconnect fabrics, it could
provide a seamless interconnect fabric spanning the intra-
Paper Details
Date Published: 2 February 2012
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8267, Optoelectronic Interconnects XII, 82670X (2 February 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.910249
Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8267:
Optoelectronic Interconnects XII
Alexei L. Glebov; Ray T. Chen, Editor(s)
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8267, Optoelectronic Interconnects XII, 82670X (2 February 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.910249
Show Author Affiliations
Tian Gu, Univ. of Delaware (United States)
Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8267:
Optoelectronic Interconnects XII
Alexei L. Glebov; Ray T. Chen, Editor(s)
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