Pre-allocating control bandwidth in an optical interconnection network

To fully exploit the performance of optics in parallel processor interconnection networks, the connections must be entirely optical. This requires the use of circuit switching. Techniques such as time division multiplexing (TDM) can be used to provide a large number of circuits without the need for program directed control operations. We describe two protocols for dynamically establishing circuits in an interconnection network. We show how TDM can be used to multiplex communication for data and control purposes together in a single optical network. We explore the ability of the protocols and TDM to exploit locality in the communication pattern to improve performance