EcoLaser: An adaptive laser control for energy-efficient on-chip photonic interconnects

摘要

The high-speed and low-cost modulation of light make photonic interconnects an attractive solution for the communication demands of manycore processors. However, the high optical loss of many nanophotonic components results in high laser power consumption, most of which is wasted during periods of system inactivity. We propose EcoLaser, an adaptive laser control mechanism that saves between 24-77% of the laser power by turning off the laser when not needed. These power savings allow the cores to exploit a higher power budget and achieve speedups of 1.1-2x.