Optics and supercomputing
Berra, P.B.; Ghafoor, A.; Guizani, M.; Marcinkowski, S.J.; Mitkas, P.A.
Proceedings of the IEEE
Volume 77, Issue 12, Dec 1989 Page(s):1797 - 1815
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/5.48824
Summary:Storage, interconnection, and processing are discussed. Various
types of optical disks and page-oriented holographic memories are
considered. It is shown that optical storage is advancing rapidly and
holds the potential of hundreds of megabytes per second data rates from
a single storage unit, which can provide many new opportunities for
supercomputing. Module-to-module, board-to-board, and chip-to-chip
interconnection and gate-to-gate communication are discussed. It is
concluded that optical interconnection is, in many cases, superior to
electronic interconnection and holds the key to the development of
future electrooptic systems. Optical computing devices are discussed and
various application areas where optical processing as well as storage
and interconnection are expected to play a role in the future are
considered. The authors believe that optical processing, while holding
considerable promise, lags behind its electronic counterpart primarily
due to the fact that digital optical device development is in its
infancy. They predict near-term systems will be electrooptic, with each
technology providing its strength to the problem at hand
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