Experimental demonstration of a high-speed free-space interconnect based on optical ring topology

In this paper, the design and implementation of a high speed optical ring topology based free space optical interconnect is described. This interconnect system operates at 500 MHz and consists of 16 laser transmitters, a four channel free space interconnect, and a fast speed receiver. A Nearest Neighbor interconnect has been successfully demonstrated. At the data rate of 500 MHz, the total system throughput is 8 Gbps. The system can easily be operated at much higher data rates since the rate was only limited by the electronic circuitry. A discussion is given about device issues such as optical switching devices and practical system design issues such as integration and interface with current electronic systems is considered. This interconnect is very promising in the implementation of ultra fast massively parallel SIMD machines.