Designs of 3D Mesh and Torus Optical Network-on-Chips:Topology,Optical Router and Routing Module

As a nanometer-level interconnection,the Optical Network-on-Chip(ONoC)was proposed since it was typically characterized by low latency,high bandwidth and power efficiency. Compared with a 2-Dimensional(2D)design,the 3D integration has the higher packing density and the shorter wire length. Therefore,the 3D ONoC will have the great potential in the future. In this paper,we first discuss the existing ONoC researches,and then design mesh and torus ONoCs from the perspectives of topology,router,and routing module,with the help of 3D integration. A simulation platform is established by using OPNET to compare the performance of 2D and 3D ONoCs in terms of average delay and packet loss rate. The performance comparison between 3D mesh and 3D torus ONoCs is also conducted. The simulation results demonstrate that 3D integration has the advantage of reducing average delay and packet loss rate,and 3D torus ONoC has the better performance compared with 3D mesh solution. Finally,we summarize some future challenges with possible solutions,including microcosmic routing inside optical routers and highly-efficient traffic grooming.