WDM Cluster Ring: A Low-Complexity Partitionable Reconfigurable Processor Interconnection Structure

Wavelength selectivity of light sources and fil ters enable reconfigurable and partitionable parallel computer interconnection at low space complexity via wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). Large scale processor networks can be built by mixing wavelength-division and passive space-division. In a multi-domain WDM network clusters of processors can be assigned ordered wavelength channel sets such that interprocessor communication takes place on a conflict-free point-to-point basis. This paper presents a multi-domain WDM processor interconnec tion structure based on a ring of processor clusters. The cluster ring has a limited space complexity and is easily partitionable into sub-networks, each can be reconfigured to multiple connectivities by appropriately tuning node transceivers. Reconfiguration of arbitrarily-sized sub-networks into grids, binary trees, and multi stage connectivities is demonstrated. The objective is supporting multi-user parallel computing with a relaxed application depen dence on the physical interconnection topology.