Name
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
Silicon Photonic interconnects are a promising technology for scaling computing systems into the exa-scale domain. However, there exist significant challenges in terms of optical losses and complexity. In this work, we evaluate the applicability of a thermally/electrically tuned Beneš network based on Mach–Zehnder Interferometers for on-chip and inter-chip interconnects as regards its scalability. We examine how insertion loss, laser power and switching energy consumption scale with the number of endpoints. In addition, we propose a set of hardware-inspired routing strategies that leverage the inherent asymmetry present in the switching components. We evaluate a range of network sizes, from 16 up to 256 endpoints, using 8 realistic and synthetic workloads and found very promising results. Our routing strategies offer a reduction in path-dependent insertion loss of up to 35% in the best case, as well as a laser power reduction of 31% for 32 endpoints. In addition, bit-switching energy is reduced by between 8% and 15% using the most efficient routing strategy, depending on the communication workload. We also show that workload execution time can be reduced with the best strategies by 5%–25% in some workloads, while the worst-case increases are at most 3%. Using our routing strategies, we show that under the examined technology parameters, a 32-endpoint interconnect can be considered for the NoC domain in terms of insertion loss and laser power, even when using conservative parameters for the modulator. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2021 | 10.1016/j.nancom.2020.100337 | Nano Communication Networks |
Keywords | DocType | Volume |
Emerging optical and photonic technologies,Network on chip,Circuit switching,Optical interconnects | Journal | 27 |
ISSN | Citations | PageRank |
1878-7789 | 0 | 0.34 |
References | Authors | |
0 | 5 | |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Markos Kynigos | 1 | 0 | 0.34 |
| Jose A. Pascual | 2 | 42 | 5.03 |
| Javier Navaridas | 3 | 201 | 23.58 |
| Mikel Luján | 4 | 540 | 46.40 |
| John Goodacre | 5 | 46 | 7.35 |