Abstract

The implementation of global interconnections is an attractive feature for use in optical computers. In processor-to-processor communications, a crossbar is the most flexible interconnection technique because the connections do not interfere with each other, and they are fully programmable. A 1-D optical crossbar can be realized by using an optical matrix–vector multiplier. The primary limitation of the 1-D crossbar, however, is that its throughput is slow, since only 1-D input and output arrays are employed. Therefore for improving the communication ability, an extension from a 1-D crossbar to a 2-D crossbar is desirable.

© 1986 Optical Society of America