A self-routing crossbar packet switch employing free-space optics for chip-to-chip interconnections.

We propose a crossbar network that employs optical interconnections between optoelectronic switching nodes. The architecture can be implemented using standard electronics for the switching logic, S-SEEDs for modulators and detectors, and fairly simple optics to connect adjacent chips in the network. Since optical connections are only required between adjacent chips, this architecture may have advantages when compared to other architectures that have been proposed using optical interconnections between electronic chips. In addition, we discuss a simple routing scheme that permits the crossbar network to operate as a self-routing packet switch. This packet switch provides for contention resolution, priority routing, and automatic increases in the priority of blocked packets. An example illustrating one implementation of this network is then described.