Application of Free-Space Optical Interconnects to High Performance Communication Decoding

摘要

Development of the 'Two-bounce' interconnection concept, that is based on topological transformations, and which minimizes the smart pixel resource required for the Viterbi architecture and has wider implications for free-space optical interconnects. Completion of the initial optomechanical evaluation system for the Viterbi system which used fiber-coupled arrays to simulate the eventual smart pixel array I/O. Development of general scaling laws for free-space optical systems, which show the size, volume, power consumption and latency benefits of free-space optics for high bisection bandwidth interconnection applications, such as the Viterbi application. Development of a novel hybrid macro/micro-optical scheme that simplifies the optical design while minimizing critical aberrations in the system. The following sections detail the key results for each of these progress area. The progress made in this program has resulted in 3 refereed journal papers and 6 conference papers.