Title:
Optical Waveguides in General Purpose Parallel Computers
Optical Waveguides in General Purpose Parallel Computers
Author(s)
Davis, Martin H., Jr.
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Abstract
This thesis examines how optics can be used in general purpose parallel
computing systems. Two basic assumptions are made. First, optical
waveguide communications technology will continue to mature and become more
and more prevalent in smaller and smaller scale environments. Second,
electronic computational capabilities will continue to increase for at least
the next decade. Thus, this research explores ways in which optical
waveguide communications can be combined with traditional electronic
computing elements to support general purpose parallel computing. The specific
question asked is, "How can the properties of optical waveguides give rise
to architectural features useful for general purpose parallel computing?"
The answers to this question are developed in the context of a distributed
shared memory computing design called OBee. This work defines the OBee design,
a specific implementation, based on optical waveguides, of a previously
developed, more abstract architecture named Beehive. The basic building block
of OBee's physical optical architecture is an Optical Broadcast Ring
(OBR). The thesis defines how one or more waveguides (or wavelengths)
are arranged in varying topologies; it also defines several different access
protocols. Together, a particular combination of topology and access protocol
define a given OBR's properties. The OBee design employs a particular (OBR)
to define a specific implementation of Beehive's reader initiated cache
coherency protocol. The OBee design uses two different OBRs to define two
distinct implementations of Beehive's sole synchronization primitive, locks.
As improvements to Beehive, OBee adds two more synchronization primitives,
barriers and Fetch-and-OP. The OBee design uses two different OBRs to
define two distinct implementations of barriers; similarly, it uses two
different OBRs to define two distinct implementations of Fetch-and-OP.
Analytical evaluations of the performance of the raw architectural primitives
are presented which show the primitives can be executed in reasonable amounts
of time. The thesis concludes that optical waveguides can provide more than
just high speed data transmission since the OBee design demonstrates that
command primitives can be directly built form OBRs' properties. Several
questions for future research pertinent specifically to OBee and generally to
optics in computing are enumerated.
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Date Issued
1993
Extent
836376 bytes
Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Technical Report