The AMOEBA Switch: An Optoelectronic Switch for Multiprocessor Networking Using Dense WDM

We present AMOEBA: a sing-chip Asynchronous Multiprocessor Opto-Electronic Bit-sliced Arrayed crossbar switch. The AMOEBA switch addresses the challenge to produce a large-scale, high-performance, non-blocking packet switch through dense integration of photonic devices directly onto Silicon VLSI circuits. Optoelectronic-VLSI technology is used to integrate the switch fabric, routing controller, packet buffers, line interface circuits, and optoelectronic conversion devices on a single chip. We show how free-space optical interconnects and wavelength-and-space-division multiplexed networking on single-mode fibers provide switched interconnection between multiple nodes in a distributed computing environment. An opto-mechanical transceiver package accomplishes the free-space-to-fiber interfacing. We report the implementation and testing of a 16-channel AMOEBA prototype switch with 12.8 Gbit/sec aggregate capacity (or 800 Mbit/sec/channel) capable of switching 16 million packets per second.