Optoelectronic interconnections for high throughput networks and pipeline signal processing

We describe the concept and experimental implementation of a smart pixel (SP) system for networking and image/video processing based on digital optoelectronic (DO) technology. DO technology enables 2D optical data transfer to and from VLSI chips at throughputs of >1 Tb/s, with very low latency (<10 ns) and very high speed (>500 Mb/s) on each of many (>100) parallel data channels. This system concept is called Transpar-TR (Translucent Smart Pixel Array-Token-Ring). The Transpar-TR is configured as a photonic ring network that transfers digital data using three-dimensional optical parallel data packets (OPDPs). Similar to most packet based networking schemes on serial interconnect links, the OPDPs contain data payload and source/destination node address information. The data pipe between nodes consists of a 2D array of optical links each operating at on-chip clock rates. This data pipe between nodes is designed to accommodate the sum of all other smaller data pipes entering the network from individual nodes, thus this system is an example of a firehose architecture. Our goal is to demonstrate two features unique to SP systems: networking with 2D spatial parallel channels and 2D parallel pipeline image and video processing for applications such as compression and tracking.