Selective optical broadcast component for reconfigurable multiprocessor, interconnects

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.