OPTICAL COMPUTER

INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL COMPUTER

Watches tick in seconds. Basketball games are timed in 10ths of a second, and drag
racers in 100ths. Computers used to work in milliseconds (1,000ths), then moved up to micr
oseconds (millionths), and now are approaching nanoseconds(billionths) for logic operation
and picoseconds (trillionths!) for the switches and gates in chips.

Since the dawn of the silicon age, computer processors have worked in essentially
the same way bits of data travel through the circuits of our computer in the form of electrons.

It works well; it’s fast, and cheap. But chipmakers are beginning to run up against
absolute physical limits to make microprocessors even faster. The next significant advance
in computer technology will require new materials or new ways of transporting data. One
promising new pathway: ELECTRO - OPTICS . Nothing travels faster than photons, the
subatomic bits of electromagnetic radiation that make up light. Harnessing photons to
transmit data could make computers exponentially faster than they are today.

OPTICAL COMPUTER is not the so called general purpose supercomputer by

any means. It will be reasonable to assume that the optical computer and the general-purpose
computers will have niches of their own in the future. With electronics, conversion of data
from one - dimension to two-dimension is very time-consuming work, and information input,
also, takes time. Consequently, such I/O bottlenecks are bound to slow down the process.

Silicon and other inorganics are often used in electronic computer hardware, the all
optical computers of the future will probably use mostly organic parts. Optical computer will
someday eliminate the need for the enormous tangle of wires used in electronic computer
today. Optical computers will be more compact and yet will have faster speeds, larger B.W.
and more capabilities than modern electronic computers.

Most components now in demand are electro-optical (EO) hybrids, limited by the
speed of their electronic parts. All-optical components will have the advantage of speed over
EO devices, but there is a lack of efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) materials that can respond
at low power levels. Almost all current all-optical components require a high level of laser
power to function as required
Companies, universities and government labs are reporting more all-optical and
organic technology developments almost weekly. Stay tuned for more hot future news in this
bright new realm of science!

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Optical computer-1 Introduction
 OPTICAL COMPUTER

Optical Development Boom

Photonics development is booming worldwide in optics
and optical components for computing and other
applications. Estimates of global photonic technology
sales in 1999 were as high as $100 billion and rising with
the ever-increasing demands of data traffic. KMI Corp.
reports data traffic growing at 100% per year worldwide,
while London's Phillips Group estimates that U.S. data
traffic will increase by 300% annually.
Right: Blue and red lasers reflecting off mirrors -- a glimpse of
things to come in computing technology? Photo Credit:
Department of Energy/Coherent Inc Laser Group.

Most components now in demand are electro-optical (EO) hybrids, which are limited
by the speed of their electronic part.All optical components will have the advantage of speed
over EO devices, but there is a lack of efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) materials that can
respond at low power levels. Almost all current all-optical components require a high level of
laser power to function as required.
Researchers from the University of Southern California working with a team from
the University of California at Los Angeles have jointly developed an organic polymer with
switching frequency of 60 GHz -- three times faster than the current industry-standard lithium
niobate crystal-based devices. Commercial development of such a device could revolutionize
the "information superhighway" and speed data processing for optical computing.
Another group at Brown University and IBM Corporation's Almaden Research
Center in San Jose, CA, have used ultra fast laser pulses to build ultra fast data-storage
Services, achieving switching down to 100ps -- results that are almost ten times faster than
currently available "speed limits".
A European collaborative effort has demonstrated high-speed optical data input and
output in free-space between IC chips in computers at a rate of more than 1 TB/sec. Astro
Terra, in collaboration with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) has built a 32-channel
1-Gigabit per second earth-to-satellite link with a 2000 km range.
In Japan, NEC Corporation has developed a method for interconnecting circuit
boards optically using Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser arrays (VCSEL). Researchers
at Osaka City University reported a method for automatic alignment of a set of optical beams
in space with a set of optical fibers. Researchers at NTT in Tokyo have designed an optical
back plane with free-space optical interconnects using tunable beam deflectors and a mirror.
Their project achieved 1000 interconnections per printed-circuit board, with throughput
ranging from 1 to 10 Terabits/sec.

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Optical Computer -2 Worldwide Boom
 OPTICAL COMPUTER

STORED PROGRAM OPTICAL COMPUTER (SPOC)

The Stored Program Optical Computer is the world's first general purpose optical
computer. The computer was built using fibers and lithium niobate directional couplers. The
computer does not contain any flip-flops, and instead the latch less architecture uses time of
flight design. The computer has a memory, an ALU, an accumulator, a PC, and the ability to
do conditional jumps and simple mathematical and boolean function. The clock rate is of 50
MHz and it has a word size of 16 bits. The current work is to time multiplex two machines on
the same hardware by increasing the clock rate to 100 MHz. The computer was designed,
using the XHatch computer aided design tool for time-of-flight synchronized circuits.

XHATCH INFORMATION :
XHatch is an X Windows CAD program used for the design of time-of-flight
synchronized opto-electronic circuits. The program includes schematic capture, logic
simulation, delay distribution, and power loss or cross-talk analysis.

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Optical Computer-3 SPOC
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Pushing the Limits of Computer Technology

Using Light and Organic Molecules to Form Materials in Space

By using light and organic molecules to form materials in space, NASA scientists
may improve both the speed and capabilities of computers
Led by “Donald Frazier” of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the Marshal
Space Flight Center, NASA is working with Optron Systems, Inc. in Bedford, Mass., to do
development in thin-film materials for devices using both electrons and photons to transmit
data. These film could be used in electronic/optical hybrids such as electro-optic computers.
In most modern computers, electrons travel between the switches of transistors
on metal wires or traces to gather, process and store information. The Optical Computers of
the future will instead use photons traveling on optical fibers or on thin films to perform
these functions. But entirely Optical Computer systems are still far into the future. Right
now scientists are focusing on developing hybrid by combining electronics with photons.
Electro-optic hybrid was first made possible around 1978, when researchers realized that
photons could respond to electrons through certain media such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3).
To make the thin polymer films for electro-optic applications, NASA scientists
dissolve a monomer (the building block of a polymer) in an organic solvent. This solution is
then put into a growth cell with a quartz window. An ultraviolet lamp shining through this
window creates a chemical reaction, causing a thin polymer film to deposit on the quartz.
Left: A polymer film "painted on" with
an ultraviolet laser next to a film created with a
broad-spectrum ultraviolet lamp. Blocking the
UV rays with a piece of paper (shaped like the
Space Shuttle) prevents the film from adhering to
the quartz..

NASA scientists are making these organic

thin films on the Space Shuttle to overcome
problems caused by convection. Convection
is a circular motion in air or in a liquid
created from uneven heating. On the surface of earth, when a gas or liquid is heated it
expands, becoming lighter and less dense. This lighter material rises, mixing with cooler and
denser material from above. Such turbulence occurs in the world's weather patterns or even in
a pot of water boiling on the stove.
In the optical computer of the future," says Frazier, "electronic circuits and
wires will be replaced by a few optical fibers and films, making the systems more efficient
with no interference, more cost effective, lighter and more compact."

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Optical Computer-4 NASA & Electro-Optonics
 OPTICAL COMPUTER

Further…
Convection is actually caused both by heating and
the Earth's gravity. The microgravity conditions of space
reduce the effects of convection because there is no "up"
direction for the heated material to head towards. Any
aggregates in space-produced films can only reach the quartz
through the slower process of diffusion. Because
microgravity reduces convection, films made in space have
fewer polymer aggregates than those made on Earth.
Convection causes other problems for the production
of optical films. Convection can affect the distribution of
molecules in a fluid, so films created on Earth can have
regions that are rich or poor in certain molecules rather than evenly dispersed throughout.
Films made in microgravity often have more highly-aligned and densely-packed molecules
than Earth-formed films. Because there is little convection in a microgravity environment,
scientists can produce smoother and more uniform films in space.

Below: Example of microgravity films versus films formed on Earth, magnified 30,000x.
These films were developed by the 3M Corporation using physical vapor transport. Left: Top
view of films;
Right:side view.
"Space allows us to
study in more detail
how film defects
form," says Mark
Paley of
NASA/Marshall. "That
will show us how to do
things differently on
the ground. The
ultimate goal is to be
able to produce
uniform thin-films
here on Earth."
All-optical computer components and thin-films developed by NASA are essential to
the current worldwide work in electro-optical hybrid computers - and will help to make
possible the astounding organic optical computers that will be the standard of future
terrestrial and space information, operating and communication systems.

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Optical Computer-5 Research & Development
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Photons Carrying Information

The highest speed ever attainable is the speed of light. So it seems logical to see
light, or electromagnetic radiation in general, as the perfect way of pushing computing to its
limits. However, there are some fundamental differences between electrons and photons that
hold us back.
First of all, electrons affect each other at distance, while photons do not. In
particular, electrons repel each other because of their negative magnetic load. This property is
an advantage in switching a transistor, in changing the base from an insulator to a conductor
and vice versa. On the other hand it is a drawback when communication is concerned,
because it leads to phenomena like induction. But it also yields a more important problem:
two currents of electrons may not cross.
And this is where another advantage of photons comes in: two beams of light can
cross without affecting each other, provided their angle is not less than 10 degrees. This
increases the number of possible interconnections, something we come back to later.

An Optical Switch
At this point we take a closer look at the conventional transistor. In the electronic
transistor, the two currents of electrons do not really interact. The semiconducting material
acts as an intermedium. If we want to build a switch and follow the idea of the transistor, we
have to find a material isomorphic to the semiconducting material, i.e. a device of which we
can change the properties just by sending a beam of light through it. Perhaps we can find a
device that sometimes (dependent on another beam) is opaque, and sometimes transparent.
In 1896 the French physicists Charles Fabry and Alfred Perot invented their
interferometer. It simply consists of two partially reflecting mirrors, placed parallel to each
other. This might be the basis for an optical transistor. If a beam of light strikes the first

mirror, some percentage of the light is reflected, and some goes through. The same happens
at the other mirror. But if we take two mirrors that let only 10 percent of the light go through,
only 1 percent of the light goes through both mirrors (the transmitted beam) and some of the
light stays between the mirrors (in what is called the cavity) for a while.

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Optical Computer-6 Advanced Features
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Gates
The logic performed by a conventional computer is done with sixteen boolean
functions, but two of them (AND, OR and NOT) are sufficient, because we can combine
these to perform one of the other fourteen.
An AND gate is formed by taking two
incident beams acting as the two inputs of
the gate. The high-level intensities of both
beams must be lower than the switching-
intensity of the transphasor, but higher than
half the switching-intensity. Both incident
beams are aimed at the same spot on the first
mirror. Only if both incident beams have an
intensity equal to their high-level, enough
power is fed into the cavity to get a high-
level transmitted intensity. If both incident
beams, or one of them, has an intensity
below its high-level, the transmitted beam
will be of low-level intensity. This is exactly like an AND gate in electronics.
To make an OR gate we only have to make sure that the high-level intensities of the
incident beams are equal to the switching-intensity of the transphasor. If one or both incident
beams have high-level intensities, the transmitted beam has a high-level intensity. Otherwise,
both incident beams must have a low-level intensity. Again the working of the optical OR
gate is very analogous to the working of the electronic one.
The optical NOT gate is constructed by taking the reflected beam as the output. As
the reflected beam is the inverse of the transmitted beam, an increase of incident intensity
produces low output while decreasing the incident beam provides high output.
The function/interconnection module
The base of the design are the function/interconnection modules that are
programmable with 16 customizing inputs. The idea is to combine two signal-pairs (a signal
pair consists of a signal and its inverse, say A and A’, or B and B’ ) using four tri-input AND
gates. Each combination is fed into an AND gate along with some customizing input . The
outputs of the gates are combined. Huang calls this a functional logic block.
Two functional logic blocks (having two signal-pairs as input and one signal-pair as
output) can be combined yielding a functional logic cell. It is clear that the output of such a
cell can be used as one of the input pairs of another cell. Just by using the right values for the
customizing inputs we can program the cell to perform one of the sixteen binary logic
functions (for instance to perform the NOT operation it's enough to swap x'and x).
Grouping two functional logic cells (having a total of two input pairs, two output
pairs and sixteen customizing inputs) gives a function/interconnection module usable both to
perform logic operations as to interconnect various logic functions. It is possible to program
this device (with the customizing inputs) in such a way that one of the four inputs is mapped
onto one of the four outputs.

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Optical Computer-7 Advanced Features
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A pipelined processor
The function/interconnection modules are cascadable to form a pipelined processor,
programmable to do every wanted computation. Synchronization is done using a clock-signal
the clock signal can control the customizing inputs of the various function/interconnection
modules. Each cycle, only one of the modules is needed, so the other modules can simply be
disabled, by using low-level customizing inputs. If there are latches (storage elements that
preserve the signal during one clock-cycle) between the modules, also controlled by the
clock-signal, data can flow through the pipeline.

Storage Elements
In a binary computer there is a need for storage elements able to represent two
stable states. Optical Bistability is applied in order to get such a device. Sending a laser beam
with an intensity within the domain of the hysteresis loop through a nonlinear material result
in two stable states. If the transmitted beam was of high-level intensity, it will remain at high-
level. If it was of low-level intensity, it will remain low-level.
If the high-level intensity represents a ``1'' and the low-level a ``0'', putting a ``1'' in
the device can be done by just by adding some other beam for a short while, such that the
added intensity is just enough to get a high-level transmitted intensity. Putting a ``0'' in the
device can be done by just stopping the beam for a short while.

An alternative for the Von Neumann programming model

While it is still along way to the first ``real'' optical computer, it is clear to see that
such a machine would have a lot of data-parallelism. This concept has lead to enormous
programming problems with existing parallel computers, and it is foreseeable that they will
be there in optical computers.
A solution could be found by looking beyond the von Neumann programming
model. A problem of writing a parallel program is the fact that computer language designers
have almost exclusively been writing von Neumann style programming languages. Although
at first a beautiful mechanism for mapping the program on the hardware, it is now thought by
some to be hopelessly outdated. The von Neumann program is an algorithm that maps a
domain of stores, to a (possibly the same) domain of stores. According to John Backus, there
are two major problems :

• The solution to a problem is never a storage domain, but a mapping of that domain
onto the problem.

• It is impossible to use composition of two programs as a function in a third

program.
The solution to a problem is never a domain of storage. So you will always need an
extra step of mapping the results in the stores (the RAM of a computer), to the real problem.
(contd.)
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Optical Computer-8 Programming Model
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(contd.)
In practice, this means that you cannot pass data (data structures, or even text, for
that matter), from one program to another, without some translation step (e.g. through a file),
because one program does not have any knowledge about an other programs data. This is
annoying at least, but using parallel architectures, this could be devastating. We could also
accept the fact that we have to live with the von Neumann model, simply because so much is
already done. If we program an optical computer using ``traditional'' methods, we can make
use of all sorts of experience, tools and theory, instead of starting over from scratch.

Examples of programming models

We could see an optical computer as a SIMD machine. Because of the properties of
light, an optical computer would be highly scalable as such. If for instance we have a logical
AND gate, we could just as easy AND two bits, as two matrices of 16 by 16 bits. This is of
course bounded by the size of one ``bit'' (a beam of photons) in combination with the size of
the gate. The catch is that in order to do something with those bits, you probably would need
some sort of photoelectric detector. So, the number of ``bits'' is also bounded by the size and
number of detectors.

Optical Array Logic

A Japanese group has managed to come up with a scheme to avoid this last
problem, called 2-D virtual memory. The two dimensional virtual memory has been
developed while they were developing a programming technique called Optical Array Logic
(OAL) .
The OAL is to be executed on an Optical Parallel Array Logic System (OPALS).
OAL is developed to implement massively parallel database managing systems.
The basic concept is to translate (electronical, binary) data into an ``image'' of
pixels, and then code two such images into one resulting image. The hardware then only
needs to operate on one image, instead of two. This image is then processed through the
OAL. The result needs then to be decoded. Ideally, the whole database (or at least, all the
elements that need to be processed) can be coded at the same time. Because of the above
mentioned hardware restraints a 2-D virtual memory is needed. This makes it possible to
manipulate arbitrary large databases, however, in a less efficient way. The OAL is
programmable. It makes use of very basic binary operations, and needs special hardware. The
OAL makes use of so called ``operation kernels'' which are specified by ``kernel
expressions''. OAL has three basic operations, together with logical AND, OR and NOT. The
basic operations are:
1. Pattern expansion. Duplicates certain pixel patterns onto other regions in the
matrix.
2. Magnitude comparison. Compares whether an image has a region larger than
(or smaller than) a certain number. (If the number is, say, 6, then all rows in an image that
code a binary number larger than 6 will be marked).
3. Sorting. OAL has a mechanism for sorting the rows in a pixel image in .
It is possible to process, and manipulate a relational database with above functions.

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Optical Computer-9 Optical Array & Examples
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Image Processing
Because of the ``image'' character of data, optical computing might also be used for
digital image processing. As an aside, we mention a ``shape grammar compiler'', proposed by
Thomas Henderson . This is a grammar consisting of a number of basic geometric shape
elements, out of which any two dimensional image can be formed. An experiment has been
conducted by Henderson where his shape grammar compiler was able to recognize two
dimensional pictures of airplanes. In combination with the above mentioned Optical Array
Logic, this might lead to new methods for digital image processing.

SUMMARY:-
Computers that use optical technology to transmit data could become available early
in the next century. A photon-based processor computer using different wavelengths could
quickly generate parallel processes, drastically increasing computing speed and complexity.
Information processing capacity and computer performance are expanding c
infinitely. Take an example of the high vision technology. In the 21st
century, scanning spots currently numbering over 1000 can be doubled if
more minute scanning can be performed, in which event, electronics
technology no longer will be adequate.
Optical computers are good at processing a massive volume of data at high speed.
With electrical signals, processing has been performed by
converting the signals into a row of pulses before input. With light,
processing can be accomplished by inputting CRT outputs into a computer
without converting them.
In humans, the eyes are used in pattern processing. The optical
computer can be equated with the human eye.
Thus we can say that there will be tremendous development in the field of
computer by nearby time and optical computer will be one of the biggest devices among them
with almost each and every peripheral device.

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Optical Computer-10 Summary