A Scalable, Low-Latency, High-Throughput, Optical Interconnect Architecture Based on Arrayed Waveguide Grating Routers

Abstract

This paper proposes, simulates, and experimentally demonstrates an optical interconnect architecture for large-scale computing systems. The proposed architecture, Hierarchical Lightwave Optical Interconnect Network (H-LION), leverages wavelength routing in arrayed waveguide grating routers (AWGRs), and computing nodes (or servers) with embedded routers and wavelength-specific optical I/Os. Within the racks and clusters, the interconnect topology is hierarchical all-to-all exploiting passive AWGRs. For the intercluster communication, the proposed architecture exploits a flat and distributed Thin-CLOS topology based on AWGR-based optical switches. H-LION can scale beyond 100 000 nodes while guaranteeing up to 1.83×saving in number of inter-rack cables, and up to 1.5×saving in number of inter-rack switches, when compared with a legacy three-tier Fat Tree network. Network simulation results show a system-wide network throughput reaching as high as 90% of the total possible capacity in case of synthetic traffic with uniform random distribution. Experiments show 97% intracluster throughput for uniform random traffic, and error-free intercluster communication at 10 Gb/s.