A constant-time parallel sorting algorithm and its optical implementation

Author

Lour, Ahmed ; Hatch, James A., Jr. ; Na, Jongwhoa

Author_Institution

Opt. Comput. & Parallel Process. Lab., Arizona Univ., Tucson, AZ, USA

Volume

15

Issue

3

fYear

1995

fDate

6/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

60

Lastpage

71

Abstract

High-speed electronic sorting networks are difficult to implement with VLSI technology because of the dense and global connectivity required. Optics eliminates this bottleneck by offering global interconnections, massive parallelism, and noninterfering communications. We present a parallel sorting algorithm and its efficient optical implementation using currently available optical hardware. The algorithm sorts n data elements in a few steps, independent of the number of elements to be sorted. Thus, it is a constant-time sorting algorithm, that is, O(1) time

Keywords

VLSI; optical information processing; parallel algorithms; sorting; VLSI technology; constant-time parallel sorting algorithm; global connectivity; global interconnections; high-speed electronic sorting networks; massive parallelism; noninterfering communications; optical hardware; optical implementation; Bandwidth; Context; High speed optical techniques; Optical arrays; Optical computing; Optical devices; Optical fiber networks; Optical interconnections; Relational databases; Sorting;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Micro, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0272-1732

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/40.387690

Filename

387690