Experimental free-space optical network for massively parallel computers

A free-space optical interconnection scheme is described for massively parallel processors based on the interconnection-cached network architecture. The optical network operates in a circuit-switching mode. Combined with a packet-switching operation among the circuit-switched optical channels, a high-bandwidth, low-latency network for massively parallel processing results. The design and assembly of a 64-channel experimental prototype is discussed, and operational results are presented.