SIPI Optical Computing Laboratories

Research in optical computing relies on the complementary characteristics of optics and electronics to provide communications and signal processing over a large (greater than 100) array of channels at data rates faster than 1 gigabit (10exp9) per second in each channel. This work utilizes "smart pixel" optoelectronic devices that combine arrays of light detectors, emitters, and modulators with analog and digital electronic circuits.

Optics is better suited for interconnections over distances longer than a few millimeters because of its superior power dissipation and crosstalk suppression characteristics. Thus, the optical sources and detectors on a smart pixel device generally perform input/output and make long length interconnections to distant pixels on the chip. On the other hand, electronics provides power efficient optical gates and signal amplification, and can better perform local logic operations at each pixel.

Current projects in the Signal and Image Processing Institute include the assembly of systems that integrate smart pixels with optics for applications in high speed networks, parallel image processing and video compression, and page-oriented optical memory access, error correction and data formatting. For more detail, see http://sipi.usc.edu/~kuznia/FSDO