Photonic Interconnects for Computing Systems: Understanding and Pushing Design Challenges

Gabriela Nicolescu · Sébastien Le Beux

Jan 2017 · River Publishers

About this ebook

In recent years, there has been a considerable amount of effort, both in industry and academia, focusing on the design, implementation, performance analysis, evaluation and prediction of silicon photonic interconnects for inter- and intra-chip communication, paving the way for the design and dimensioning of the next and future generation of high-performance computing systems. Photonic Interconnects for Computing Systems provides a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art technology and research achievements in employing silicon photonics for interconnection networks and high-performance computing, summarizing main opportunities and some challenges. The majority of the chapters were collected from presentations made at the International Workshop on Optical/Photonic Interconnects for Computing Systems (OPTICS) held over the past two years. The workshop invites internationally recognized speakers on the range of topics relevant to silicon photonics and computing systems.

Technical topics discussed in the book include:

• Design and Implementation of Chip-Scale Photonic Interconnects
• Developing Design Automation Solutions for Chip-Scale Photonic Interconnects
• Design Space Exploration in Chip-Scale Photonic Interconnects
• Thermal Analysis and Modeling in Photonic Interconnects
• Design for Reliability
• Fabrication Non-Uniformity in Photonic Interconnects

Photonic Interconnects for Computing Systems presents a compilation of outstanding contributions from leading research groups in the field. It presents a comprehensive overview of the design, advantages, challenges, and requirements of photonic interconnects for computing systems. The selected contributions present important discussions and approaches related to the design and development of novel photonic interconnect architectures, as well as various design solutions to improve the performance of such systems while considering different challenges. The book is ideal for personnel in computer/photonic industries as well as academic staff and master/graduate students in computer science and engineering, electronic engineering, electrical engineering and photonics.

About the author

Gabriela Nicolescu is a Professor at Polytechnique Montreal in the Department of Computer and Software Engineering. She obtained her B.Eng. Degree in Electrical Engineering from UPB (Polytechnic University Bucharest) in 1998 and her Ph.D. Degree in 2002 from INPG (Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble) France. Her research interests are related to the design methodologies, programming models and security for advanced heterogeneous systems on chip integrating advanced technologies. She co-authored more than 160 papers including journal articles, conference papers, books, book chapters and patents. Mahdi Nikdast received his Ph.D. degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2014. Since 2014, he is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer and Software Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal. He authored/co-authored more than 50 papers in refereed journals and international conference publications. He is the founder and the program chair of the International Workshop on Optical/Photonic Interconnects for Computing Systems (OPTICS). Mahdi was a recipient of several awards, including the Best Paper Award from the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) Conference (DATE-2016), the Best Poster Paper Award from the Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP-2015), and the Second Best Project Award from the 6thAnnualAMDTechnical Forum and Exhibition (AMD-TFE-2010). His research interests include silicon photonics, optoelectronics, heterogeneous computing systems, multiprocessor systems-on-chip, and interconnection networks.