Hardware-Software Integrated Silicon Photonics for Computing Systems

A wealth of high-bandwidth and energy-efficient silicon photonic devices have been demonstrated in recent years. These represent promising solutions for high-performance computer systems that need to distribute extremely large amounts of data in an energy-efficient manner. Chip-scale optical interconnects that employ novel silicon photonics devices can potentially leapfrog the performance of traditional electronic-interconnected systems. However, the benefits of silicon photonics at a system level have yet to be realized. This chapter reviews methodologies for integrating silicon photonic interconnect technologies with computing systems, including implementation challenges associated with device characteristics. A fully functional co-integrated hardware-software system needs to encompass device functionality, control schema, and software logic seamlessly. Each layer, ranging from individual device characterization, to higher layer control of multiple devices, to arbitration of networks of devices, and ultimately to encapsulation of subsystems to create the entire computing system is explored. Finally, results and implications at each level of the system stack are presented.