A fiber optic hypermesh for SIMD/MIMD machines

A fiber-optic multidimensional mesh-based network for SIMD (single-instruction, multiple-data) and MIMD (multiple-instruction, multiple data) multiprocessors is proposed. A novel optical switch design which uses 50% fewer lasers/receivers than previously proposed optical WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) switches is proposed. A novel random-access scheme which supports prioritized traffic and which should be easier to implement in GaAs than the FOX/HYPASS schemes is described. An approximate analysis and extensive simulations both indicate that the optical switch can operate at a peak bandwidth very near the maximum of about 0.586. In addition, a novel network called the hypermesh is proposed. A distributed optical (or electronic) crossbar links d nodes along each dimension in an n-dimensional base-d hypermesh