Optical bridge interconnect unit for adjacent processors

Abstract

A system and method for efficient data transfer in a computing system are described. A computing system includes multiple nodes that receive tasks to process. A bridge interconnect transfers data between two processing nodes without the aid of a system bus on the motherboard. One of the multiple bridge interconnects of the computing system is an optical bridge interconnect that transmits optical information across the optical bridge interconnect between two nodes. The receiving node uses photonic integrated circuits to translate the optical information into electrical information for processing by electrical integrated circuits. One or more nodes switch between using an optical bridge interconnect and a non-optical bridge interconnect based on one or more factors such as measured power consumption and measured data transmission error rates.