A programmable dynamic optically reconfigurable gate array

Recently, optically reconfigurable gate arrays (OR-GAs), which consist of a gate array VLSI, a holographic memory, and a laser array, have been developed to achieve a huge virtual gate count that is much larger than those of currently available VLSIs. Among such developments, we have been developing dynamic optically reconfigurable gate arrays (DORGAs) that realize a high gate density VLSI using a photodiode memory architecture. However, comparison of these devices with current field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), conventional ORGAs and DORGAs have one shortcoming: they are not reprogrammable after fabrication. Therefore, to remove that shortcoming, this paper presents a programmable dynamic optically reconfigurable gate array architecture.