Nanophotonic Interconnect CAD: Automated Design for Nanophotonic Enabled Interconnect in Multicore Architectures

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这项研究的目标是开发一个自动化设计环境，使新兴的纳米硅光子光学互连器件技术集成在下一代多核计算架构中。该方法包括一个全面的仿真框架，能够捕获光学和电子组件的低级别物理细节，包括布局占用空间，光损耗和能耗，同时保持周期准确的功能网络仿真。智力优势：用于创建互连网络的光子技术在如何设计和执行以实现互连和路由功能方面与电子技术完全不同。因此，为了利用光子互连网络在多核架构中的潜在优势，从头开始开发一种新的设计方法和工具集，其结合了光子学的物理不同行为，并为未来的多核系统提供准确的性能建模。独特的这一努力，物理层参数来自设计，制造和表征的真实的被动和主动硅纳米光子构建块devices.Broader影响：该计划的进步多个跨学科领域的网络，多核计算架构，互连能力和纳米硅光子学。该计划包括多元化推广和教育培训工作，强调该领域的跨学科性质。拟议的CAD工具套件将公开提供，以提高纳米光子互连网络开发的速度和实现的复杂性，这些网络能够将抽象的设计概念转换为物理准确、经过验证的复杂光子片上网络，用于多核芯片多处理器。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The objective of this research is to develop an automated design environment for enabling the integration of emerging nanoscale silicon photonic optical interconnect device technologies in next-generation multicore computing architectures. The approach includes a comprehensive simulation framework capable of capturing low-level physical details of both optical and electronic components including, layout footprint, optical losses, and the energy consumption, while maintaining a cycle-accurate functional network simulation. Intellectual Merit: The photonic technologies used to create interconnection networks are fundamentally different from electronic counterparts in how they are designed and perform to achieve interconnect and routing functionalities. Therefore, to exploit the potential advantages of photonic interconnection networks in multicore architectures, a novel design methodology and toolset is developed from scratch in a manner that incorporates the physically different behavior of photonics and provides accurate performance modeling for future multicore systems. Unique to this effort, the physical layer parameters are derived from the design, fabrication, and characterization of real passive and active silicon nanophotonic building blocks devices.Broader Impact: The program advances multiple cross-disciplinary areas in networking, multicore computing architecture, interconnect capabilities and nanoscale silicon photonics. Included in the program are diversity outreach and educational training efforts that emphasize the cross-disciplinary nature of the field. The proposed suite of CAD tools will be made publicly available in an effort to improve the speed and realized complexity of nanophotonic enabled interconnection network development that are able to transform an abstract design concept into a physically-accurate, verified, complex photonic on-chip networks for multicore chip multiprocessors.