Exploratory Work In Photonic Switching Based On Free Space Digital Optics (5-16)
20 June 1989
The optical domain offers the strengths of both temporal and spatial bandwidth to be exploited in the design of new switching and computing systems. The majority of the research has focused on the efficient utilization of the available temporal bandwidth of optical fiber. This includes switching fabrics based on time-division multiple access, code-division multiple access, and wavelength-division multiple access. From the computing point of view buses, backplanes, and interconnection networks for MIMD systems also have been proposed that are based on the same multiple-access techniques. The second strength of the optical domain, and least understood, is the spatial bandwidth provided by imaging systems. This spatial bandwidth can be viewed as connections or optical pin-outs.