Investigation on how novel optical technologies could improve energy efficiency and data rate of on-chip interconnects used in many-core microprocessor architectures.
Context
Optical solutions are attractive to provide the required throughput in 3D many-cores architectures. Massive transport of information has been demonstrated in optical communications in excess of 100 Tbit/s using WDM and even more than 1 Tbit/s using a single laser. It is clear that the introduction of high-speed on-chip modulation (using e.g. silicon modulators) and WDM technologies would also provide orders of magnitude improvements in throughput for interconnects, provided conditions are met with respect to energy consumption and footprint. However, a number of challenges remain such as the CMOS compatibility of the photonic layer within the microprocessor or the choice of optical network strategy.
Goals
The 3D Optical Many Core project is based on 4 challenges :
- The objective of Challenge 1 is to provide a generic model of 3D architectures based on a new version of an ONoC, and to propose a design space exploration infrastructure.
- The aim of Challenge 2 is the demonstration of novel integrated laser sources on silicon and the investigation of relevant specifications of light sources in many-core architectures.
- The global objective Challenge 3 consists in providing a simulation infrastructure of the global manycore platform. This challenge will focus on accurate low-level simulations of new photonics devices with the objective to produce high-level models for fast design space exploration in Challenge 1.
- Challenge 4 will explore the potential of on-chip all-optical signal processing functionalities for high throughput interconnects.
Partners
Foton-SP – Foton-OHM – INRIA/IRISA – INL/École Centrale Lyon
Coordinator
Pascal BESNARD (Foton-SP)
Local coordinator Foton-SP: Alberto PARINI
Local coordinator Foton-OHM: Yoan LEGER
Funding
CominLabs (607 k€)
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