Abstract

We present a reflective optical ring array interconnect architecture for handling data routings under various SIMD digital array processing environments. The proposed architecture can perform clock-skew-free optical data permutation ranging from a fixed degree model, such as a nearest-neighbor, to a variable degree model, such as a plus-minus-2ⁱ networks. It was found that the space-variant routings that are difficult to perform in a rectangular array OEICs can easily be mapped into rotation-invariant routings to be optically implemented via conventional optical components. Our system aberration study also shows that the design of the supporting optical imaging system for the proposed architecture is much more easily handled than that using a conventional rectangular array topology. Design principles for both the involved individual optical components and the entire optical system are described. The optical network performance parameters, such as the diffraction- and aberration-related processing capability, the optical transmitter coupling efficiency, the optical free-space power distribution loss, the detector dynamic range requirement, and the power-dependent elemental-bit-rate, are analyzed.

© 1992 Optical Society of America