research-article

A micro-architectural analysis of switched photonic multi-chip interconnects

Authors:

Michael O. McCracken,

Herb Schwetman,

Chia-Hsin Owen Chen,

Ashok V. KrishnamoorthyAuthors Info & Claims

ISCA '12: Proceedings of the 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

Pages 153 - 164

Published: 09 June 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Silicon photonics is a promising technology to scale offchip bandwidth in a power-efficient manner. Given equivalent bandwidth, the flexibility of switched networks often leads to the assumption that they deliver greater performance than point-to-point networks on message passing applications with low-radix traffic patterns. However, when optical losses are considered and total optical power is constrained, this assumption no longer holds.

In this paper we present a power constrained method for designing photonic interconnects that uses the power characteristics and limits of optical switches, waveguide crossings, inter-layer couplers and waveguides. We apply this method to design three switched network topologies for a multi-chip system.

Using synthetic and HPC benchmark-derived message patterns, we simulated the three switched networks and a WDM point-to-point network. We show that switched networks outperform point-to-point networks only when the optical losses of switches and inter-layer couplers losses are each 0.75 dB or lower; achieving this would require a major breakthrough in device development. We then show that this result extends to any switched network with similarly complex topology, through simulations of an idealized "perfect" network that supports 90% of the peak bandwidth under all traffic patterns. We conclude that given a fixed amount of input optical power, under realistic device assumptions, a point-to-point network has the best performance and energy characteristics.

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Cited By

Grani PBartolini S(2018)Scalable Path-Setup Scheme for All-Optical Dynamic Circuit Switched NoCs in Cache Coherent CMPsACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems10.1145/315484014:1(1-27)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3154840
Grani PProietti RAkella VBen Yoo SJacob B(2016)Photonic Interconnects for Interposer-based 2.5D/3D Integrated Systems on a ChipProceedings of the Second International Symposium on Memory Systems10.1145/2989081.2989111(377-386)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2989081.2989111
Pang JDwyer CLebeck A(2015)More is Less, Less is MoreACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2786763.269437743:1(283-296)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2786763.2694377
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A micro-architectural analysis of switched photonic multi-chip interconnects
1. Computer systems organization
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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ISCA '12: Proceedings of the 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

June 2012

584 pages

ISBN:9781450316422

General Chair:
Shih-Lien Lu
Intel
,
Program Chair:
Josep Torrellas
University of Illinois

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 40, Issue 3
ISCA '12
June 2012
559 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/2366231
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IEEE Computer Society

United States

Publication History

Published: 09 June 2012

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ISCA '12

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ISCA '12: The 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

June 9 - 13, 2012

Oregon, Portland

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ISCA '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 47 of 262 submissions, 18%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 543 of 3,203 submissions, 17%

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Cited By

Grani PBartolini S(2018)Scalable Path-Setup Scheme for All-Optical Dynamic Circuit Switched NoCs in Cache Coherent CMPsACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems10.1145/315484014:1(1-27)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3154840
Grani PProietti RAkella VBen Yoo SJacob B(2016)Photonic Interconnects for Interposer-based 2.5D/3D Integrated Systems on a ChipProceedings of the Second International Symposium on Memory Systems10.1145/2989081.2989111(377-386)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2989081.2989111
Pang JDwyer CLebeck A(2015)More is Less, Less is MoreACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2786763.269437743:1(283-296)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2786763.2694377
Pang JDwyer CLebeck A(2015)More is Less, Less is MoreACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2775054.269437750:4(283-296)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2775054.2694377
Xu YYang JMelhem RNapoli CSalapura VFranke HHou R(2015)BandArbProceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers10.1145/2742854.2742876(1-8)Online publication date: 6-May-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2742854.2742876
Pang JDwyer CLebeck AOzturk OEbcioglu KDwarkadas S(2015)More is Less, Less is MoreProceedings of the Twentieth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/2694344.2694377(283-296)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2694344.2694377
Zulfiqar AKoka PSchwetman HLipasti MZheng XKrishnamoorthy AFarrens MKozyrakis C(2013)Wavelength stealingProceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture10.1145/2540708.2540728(222-233)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2540708.2540728
Katayama YOkazaki AOhba NFranke HHeinecke APalem KUpfal E(2013)Software-defined massive multicore networking via freespace optical interconnectProceedings of the ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers10.1145/2482767.2482802(1-9)Online publication date: 14-May-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2482767.2482802
Bashir JPeter ESarangi S(2019)A Survey of On-Chip Optical InterconnectsACM Computing Surveys10.1145/326793451:6(1-34)Online publication date: 28-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3267934
Grani PProietti RAkella VBen Yoo SJacob B(2016)Photonic Interconnects for Interposer-based 2.5D/3D Integrated Systems on a ChipProceedings of the Second International Symposium on Memory Systems10.1145/2989081.2989111(377-386)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2989081.2989111
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