High capacity interconnection networks

Optical interconnects are being considered for short link data networks as a solution enabling higher aggregate bit rates and lower power consumption. For short link length interconnects, as used in chip to chip interconnects, internal system backplanes and inter-system interconnects such as blade server backplanes, storage area networks and processing clusters, requirements are quite different to those for long distance telecommunications systems. Low power consumption, latency, and size become important criteria in addition to ultra high bandwidth. In order to achieve the projected ultra high capacity and low latency needs, we are considering optical switching fabrics. The optical switch, however, brings significant changes to the interconnect architecture in terms of how routing decisions are made and how contention resolution is managed. We discuss these issues and present our results for a multiwavelength optically switched interconnect.