University of California

Ronald E Haigh

Robert J Deri

Anthony J DeGroot

Alan D Conder

Karla G Hagans

Kent G McCammon

Paul D Sargis

Steve Wojtczuk

Eugene D Brooks, Iii

Gerard F Jacobson

Keith F Hugenberg

As the performance of individual elements within parallel processing systems increases, increased communication capability between distributed processor and memory elements is required. There is great interest in using fiber optics to improve interconnect communication beyond that attainable using electronic technology. Several groups have considered WDM, star-coupled optical interconnects. The invention uses a fiber optic transceiver to provide low latency, high bandwidth channels for such interconnects using a robust multimode fiber technology. Instruction-level simulation is used to quantify the bandwidth, latency, and concurrency required for such interconnects to scale to 256 nodes, each operating at 1 GFLOPS performance. Performance scales have been shown to &ap;100 GFLOPS for scientific application kernels using a small number of wavelengths (8 to 32), only one wavelength received per node, and achievable optoelectronic bandwidth and latency.

High-performance parallel processors based on star-coupled wavelength division multiplexing optical interconnects

An array of independently connected photovoltaic cells on a semi-insulating substrate contains reflective coatings between the cells to enhance efficiency. A uniform, flat top laser beam profile is illuminated upon the array to produce electrical current having high voltage. An essentially wireless system includes a laser energy source being fed through optic fiber and cast upon the photovoltaic cell array to prevent stray electrical signals prior to use of the current from the array. Direct bandgap, single crystal semiconductor materials, such as GaAs, are commonly used in the array. Useful applications of the system include locations where high voltages are provided to confined spaces such as in explosive detonation, accelerators, photo cathodes and medical appliances.

High voltage photovoltaic power converter

An optical method for separating and routing local and express channel data comprises interconnecting the nodes in a network with fiber optic cables. A single fiber optic cable carries both express channel traffic and local channel traffic, e.g., in a massively parallel processor (MPP) network. Express channel traffic is placed on, or filtered from, the fiber optic cable at a light frequency or a color different from that of the local channel traffic. The express channel traffic is thus placed on a light carrier that skips over the local intermediate nodes one-by-one by reflecting off of selective mirrors placed at each local node. The local-channel-traffic light carriers pass through the selective mirrors and are not reflected. A single fiber optic cable can thus be threaded throughout a three-dimensional matrix of nodes with the x,y,z directions of propagation encoded by the color of the respective light carriers for both local and express channel traffic. Thus frequency division multiple access is used to hierarchically separate the local and express channels to eliminate the bucket brigade latencies that would otherwise result if the express traffic had to hop between every local node to reach its ultimate destination.

Massively parallel processor networks with optical express channels

An SCM system for simultaneously reducing the concomitant problems of receiver complexity and dispersion penalty and without requiring the use of an expensive, high-bandwidth optical detector. The system provides both a dispersion reduction and a direct detection to the receiver, with microwave mixers and lithium niobate external modulators that produce sidebands that are only separated by a few gigahertz from a principal laser optical carrier. Digital data streams are independently impressed upon these sidebands for transmission over an ordinary single-mode fiber. Independent high-speed data streams are upconverted to microwave frequencies. These subcarriers are then combined with a microwave power combiner and amplified with a microwave amplifier. A solid-state 1550-nm laser carrier is modulated by the microwave subcarriers. An erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is used just prior to long-distance transmission over ordinary single-mode fiber. The transmitted optical signal may then traverse multiple EDFAs to compensate for long-haul optical fiber losses prior to detection. At a receiving end, the optical signal is split into multiple paths. The subcarrier channels are optically pre-selected using a narrowband optical filter, such as a fiber Fabry-Perot (FFP) filter. An optical detector converts the selected optical signal into a baseband electrical data stream.

Subcarrier multiplexing with dispersion reduction and direct detection

An improved Mach-Zehnder integrated optical electro-optic modulator is achieved by application and incorporation of a DC bias box containing a laser synchronized trigger circuit, a DC ramp and hold circuit, a modulator transfer function negative peak detector circuit, and an adjustable delay circuit. The DC bias box ramps the DC bias along the transfer function curve to any desired phase or point of operation at which point the RF modulation takes place.

Growing community of inventors

Tracy, CA, United States of America

Ronald E Haigh