Photonic Network-on-Chip Design (Integrated Circuits and Systems, 68)

This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the theory and practice of photonic devices for networks-on-chip. It outlines the issues in designing photonic network-on-chip architectures for future many-core high performance chip multiprocessors. The discussion is built from the bottom up: starting with the design and implementation of key photonic devices and building blocks, reviewing networking and network-on-chip theory and existing research, and finishing with describing various architectures, their characteristics, and the impact they will have on a computing system. After acquainting the reader with all the issues in the design space, the discussion concludes with design automation techniques, supplemented by provided software.

This book is a product of an emerging interdisciplinary field that is bringing photonic communications to address many of the challenges associated with scaling computing systems performance. In addressing this cross-disciplinary topic the book bridges the gap among the devices, tools, and architectures for realizing photonic interconnection networks in future computing. This book provides:

• A comprehensive discussion on the usage and integration of silicon photonics interconnect technologies, including distinct properties of key photonic devices and recent engineering breakthroughs.
• Design methodologies for photonic links and the three main classes of photonic network-on-chip architectures applicable to future computing systems.
• A presentation of the design tools and simulation environment used to characterize photonic interconnection network architectures and evaluate the impact on computing performance.