A Single-Wavelength Photonic Network on Chip Design Based on Optical Orthogonal Codes

Silicon photonic-based interconnects are becoming a very promising solution for multi-core system on chip (SoC) platforms. In this paper, a novel photonic network on chip (PNoC) design for multi-core SoC is proposed, based on optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) using a single on/off-chip laser diode (LD). The proposed design offers a much lower optical power consumption, and consequently, cost, as compared to the state-of-the-art PNoC designs, in which multiple on/off chip LDs are usually utilized. The core-to-core communication over the proposed PNoC is simulated, with the bit error rate (BER) as the performance metric of interest. Simulation results confirm the analytical BER expressions and show that an error free core-to-core transmission is achieved.