Direct-modulated optical networks for interposer systems

Mohammad Reza Jokar, Lunkai Zhang, John M. Dallesasse, Frederic T. Chong, Yanjing Li

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We present a new interposer-level optical network based on direct-modulated lasers such as vertical-cavity surfaceemitting lasers (VCSELs) or transistor lasers (TLs). Our key observation is that, the physics of these lasers is such that they must transmit significantly more power (21) than is needed by the receiver. We take advantage of this excess optical power to create a new network architecture called Rome, which splits optical signals using passive splitters to allow flexible bandwidth allocation among different transmitter and receiver pairs while imposing minimal power and design costs. Using multi-chip module GPUs (MCM-GPUs) as a case study, we thoroughly evaluate network power and performance, and show that (1) Rome is capable of efficiently scaling up MCM-GPUs with up to 1024 streaming multiprocessors, and (2) Rome outperforms various competing designs in terms of energy efficiency (by up to 4) and performance (by up to 143%).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, NOCS 2019
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9781450367004
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 17 2019
Event13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, NOCS 2019 - New York, United States
Duration: Oct 17 2019Oct 18 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, NOCS 2019

Conference

Conference13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, NOCS 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York
Period10/17/1910/18/19

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture

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