Crosstalk noise and bit error rate analysis for optical network-on-chip

Crosstalk noise is an intrinsic characteristic of photonic devices used by optical networks-on-chip (ONoCs) as well as a potential issue. For the first time, this paper analyzed and modeled the crosstalk noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and bit error rate (BER) of optical routers and ONoCs. The analytical models for crosstalk noise, minimum SNR, and maximum BER in mesh-based ONoCs are presented. An automated crosstalk analyzer for optical routers is developed. We find that crosstalk noise significantly limits the scalability of ONoCs. For example, due to crosstalk noise, the maximum BER is 10^-3 on the 8 × 8 mesh-based ONoC using an optimized crossbar-based optical router. To achieve the BER of 10^-9 for reliable transmissions, the maximum ONoC size is 6 × 6. A novel compact high-SNR optical router is proposed to improve the maximum ONoC size to 8 × 8.