Abstract

The Optical Highways [1] scheme is a design for an optical, free-space interconnect for massively parallel computers. Unlike some other optical interconnect schemes this design is not constrained to low-order networks but is a general purpose interconnect onto which almost any network topology can be mapped. For example, the Optical Highway can be configured to implement topologies such as a low-order 2-D Mesh, a multi-dimensional Hypercube, or even a high-order Crossbar. This flexibility makes the scheme appealing to parallel computer architects, especially the ability to implement large-scale, higher-order network topologies, which were previously impossible using only conventional electrical interconnects.

© 1998 IEEE