Abstract

Sorting is a basic, fundamental operation used for many symbolic, numeric, and artificial intelligence (AI) tasks [1]. Because of its importance, there has been a great deal of work on developing and analyzing sorting algorithms and architectures [2]. In this paper, we present a novel constant-time parallel sorting algorithm and an efficient optical implementation capable of both determining the positions of the sorted data elements and physically reordering them in O(1) time steps. It uses photonics for highly parallel interconnects and optoelectronics, in the form of “smart pixels” for processing. Thus, it exploits the advantages of both the optical and electrical domains.

© 1995 Optical Society of America