Design of a scalable nanophotonic interconnect for future multicores

As communication-centric computing paradigm gathers momentum due to increased wire delays and excess power dissipation with technology scaling, researchers have focused their attention on developing alternate technology solutions for Network-on-Chips (NoCs) architectures. One potential solution is nanophotonics because of higher bandwidth, reduced power dissipation and increased wiring simplification. In this paper, we propose PROPEL, a balanced power and area-efficient on-chip photonic interconnect for future multicores. PROPEL overcomes two fundamental issues facing NoCs architectures, namely power dissipation and area overhead, by a combination of multiplexing techniques (wavelength and space) and by exploiting the recent advances in optical component design space. We also propose a scalable version of PROPEL, called E-PROPEL which can scale to 256 cores. Our results indicate that PROPEL and EPROPEL are power, cost and area-effective networks when compared to competing on-chip opti...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2009
• Where: ANCS
• Authors: Avinash Karanth Kodi, Randy Morris
• Keywords: ANCS 2009, Computer Networks, Optical Components, Optical Topologies, Power Dissipation