Fiber-optic interconnection networks for signal processing applications

In future parallel radar signal processing systems, with high bandwidth demands, new interconnection technologies are needed. The same reasoning can be made for other signal processing applications, e.g., those involving multimedia. Fiber-optic networks are a promising alternative and a lot of work have been done. In this paper, a number of fiber-optic interconnection architectures are reviewed, especially from a radar signal processing point-of-view. Two kinds of parallel algorithm mapping are discussed: (i) a chain of pipeline-stages mapped, more or less directly, one stage per computation node and (ii) SPMD (Same Program Multiple Data). Several network configurations, which are simplified due to the nature of the applications, are also proposed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 199