. .. ......

'

S.PEGIA~ REJ~.O~~ . , . : ~ _~ ,' __ .- ~~- ..-_

OPTI AL co PUTING:
AFIELD IN FLUX
A worldwide race is on to develop machines that compute with photons
insteadofelectrons-but what is the best approach?
War has brokenout. A thousand missiles thunder off their launch
31 PHOTONS IN THE pads halfway around the world, from a country hell-bent on de-
stroying the United States. Only 25 minutes-ISOO precious sec-
""o",v" ft
.~DUI~
u.. . onds-remain to destroy them before they reenterthe atmosphere
____........
ELECTRONS -...._ ......... . _..__ ..w_"'._'... _
over their targets. By then the number will have multiplied into
as many as 10 000 warheads, many of them live nuclear heads.
40 THE WRE OF some decoys. How can they all be individually tracked and the
ANALOG live warheads annihilated in space before they hit their targets?
COMPUTING That missilescenariois one that has beenpresentedto research-
ers who are wrestling with a pioneer concept: computing with
44 PRCSPECTS FOR light. Other scenarios pose similar challenges:
In a hospital, a patient is dying. His symptoms closely resem-
AN OPTICAL ble those of bacterial meningitis,but tests haveindicated a gram-
_ .....
SUPERCOMPUTER .....
positive bacillus that the laboratory has neverseenbefore. Clearly
his is a highly unusual case, but there is no time to searchthrough
---'-~-~-_._ ---~_._-.....,--~,;-..;.-y,

49 IN SEARCH OF the last 30 years of medicalliteraturefor clues. The patient's physi-

AN OPTICAL cian turns to her workstation and terselydescribes the patient's
symptoms in response to verbal queries from the machine. In a
..,.....
...
_~, ...._ ..
'BRAIN'
'~~._ ..._.._o'..._ ..... few seconds the recommendation flashes:administer penicillin.
...._ ---...-.__.""-..._._..;._...:__ ............ ,""'..........._ _ ,

The machine also lists a number of caveats. Even though there

51 A SHOPPING are no records of such a bacterium in the vast pooled memory
LiST OF of dozens of hospitals, many other diseases caused by gram-
. .
_~ _~~'~~~~M~~!~_~."_.~.,._ treatment thus seemsthe most reasonableoption, in accord with
positivebacillirespond to penicillin. The machine'srecommended

the specialist's own diagnosis from long years of experience.

55 PROSPECTS Eighty millionmiles away, acrossthe vacuumof space,an auto-
""U
au..
nomous walking robot exploring the surface of Mars hesitates
. ,.. .-. '-. --,.. .PITFALLS
---..__ . _. ,.. . . . . ,_.. . . _ . . . . . _..:.__.. . .__'.. . "--.1-
for a moment to survey the ruddy terrain. The robot seems to
have reached the edge of a cliff. One step forward would ctJTY
~' ~._

57 TO PROBE it to destruction. but going back the way it came wouldrun coun-
fURTHER ter to its mission. TIle land to the left slopes gently downward,
seeming to promise a way of reaching the plain below. In addi-
tion, there seems to be a narrow ravine threading a relatively
smooth path betweenthe rocks and bouldersthat havemade pro-
gressso difficult. The robot selects that route as the best choice,
transmits its decision back to earth, where the signal will arrive
7 minutes later, and begins picking its way down the slope.
All three scenarioshaveone thing in common: they are high-
leveltasks taking in vast amounts of information instantaneous-
ly-information that may be changing radically from moment
to moment. That information must be processedinstantly to ob-
tain answers very fast-at least as quickly as human reflexesand
possibly ordersof magnitude faster. The decisionsleadingto those
answers require intelligent hypothesesand evenhumanlike intui-
7iudy E. Bell Senior Associate Editor

34
I
tive extrapolation from incomplete and changing information.
Sometimes the answer is not a piece of information, but a com-
o mand to perform a physical action, which requires feedback. And

I all this must be done by an independent machine.

Such tasks are far beyond the capability of existing digital elec-
tronic computers. But they are only three of a host of potential
I applications projected for optical computers that might be opera-
a tional as early as the turn of the century.
I ThIT!e goals for optical computing
In laboratories in a dozen countries around the world, hun-
dreds of researchers are exploring the frontiers of computing with
photons instead of electrons. In some cases the goal is relatively
modest: to make electronic computers work faster, or to devise
a special-purpose machine that can better handle restricted classes
of problems that do not lend themselves well to electronics, or
to build a machine that will be more impervious to electromag-
netic interference or nuclear electromagnetic pulses.
In other cases the goal is grander: to develop an optical super-
computer that will outstrip even the fastest possible electronic
supercomputer.
In the most dramatic instance, the ultimate goal is to exploit
all the physical differences between photons and electrons to
develop wholly new,sometimes exotic, computer architectures that
reason and behave more like a human brain than a lightning-fast
calculator.
These three goals vary in complexity and feasibility. The sim-
plest goal, that of incorporating optical fibers1>etween verylarge-
scale integrated circuits, is very close to realization, while the more
ambitious goals may not be realized for decades-some critics
say never.
It would be a mistake, however. to present the goals as a well-ar-
ticulated agenda by optical computing researchers. On the con-
trary, many of the efforts are being pursued independently by
researchers who have deep philosophical convictions about why
one approach may be more fruitful than another.
"Optical computing is now more of a direction than a goal,"
observed H. John Caulfield, director of the Center for Applied
Optics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. His view is
shared by Satoshi Ishihara. senior researcher in the Electrotech-
nical Laboratory of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade
and Industry.
Optical computing may not even take a single direction. At this
early stage, there is lively debate as to which of many directions
to go. The aspects being explored range all the way from the best
materials for electrooptic devices. to the circuits that can be built
from those devices, to the computer architectures that can incor-
porate those components; to the algorithms that can be run on
machines configured for light beams instead of electronic sig-
nals. Moreover, philosophy seems to be as much a driver as phy-
sics: in the process of exploring, specialists are reexamining such
fundamental concepts as what we mean by computing.
Even if the precise goals or the paths to reach them are not
yet clear to researchers, their excitement is palpable-as is their
vision of the potential rewards. This vision is shared by investi-
gators and funding agencies in the United States. Japan, the Soviet
Union, and Europe. Around the world, universities, private com-
panies, and government institutes have joined forces both within
and across national boundaries, responding to the urgent sense

{I} Experimental array ofopticaldigital logicswitches canoper-

atesimultaneously on manyparallelstreams ofopticaliriforma-
tion shining on it. Each squareswitch measures 10micrometers
on a side. The array wasformed by etchinga t.s-micrometer-
thick layer ofgallium arsenide to form individual switches, and
thenadding dielectric mirrors to thefront and back. Thedevices
hererepresent only one small section ofa two-dimensional ar-
rayof morethan ]OD-by-}OO such switches. Depending on how
the devices areaddressed, they canfunction eitheras an array
oflogical AND gates, logical NOR gales, or memoryelements.

3S
that they are riding the next major revolution in computation.
But they are wellaware that the road ahead is long and ardu-
ous. Most are adamant in predjetio8 that it will be at least 10 to
IS years before a commercial all-optical computer is developed.
Some criticsdoubt the feasibilityor usefulness of an optical ap-
proach to computing at all, whether digital or analog, citingsuch
basic considerations as energyconsumption and accuracy.Even
if it provespossible to build optical computers, they ask, would
it be practical, considering the strong competition from already
mature electronic silicon and gallium arsenide technolo-
gies?
Why optics?
Why are people intrigued by the idea of computing with pho-
tons insteadof-or in addition to-electrons? Photons and elec-
trons have certainsimilarities. Both can be made to carry informa..
tion fromone placeto another, and in certain devices the energy
of electronscan readily be converted to photons and viceversa.
But photons and electrons also have key differences. An elec-
tron, beinga charged panicle. can interact veryeasily with another
one through their electriccharges and magnetic fields. In a good
interaction medium, such as a semiconductor, a small current Of
voltage can be made to switch another current or voltage. But
that strong interaction can also create problems in the form of
undesired crosstalk or electromagnetic interference"
furthermore, when the wire is fully charged the speed at which
an electronic signal can be transmitted to the next component
within an integrated circuit is limited by the product of the resis-
tance and capacitance of the wire. This limit is pretty much the
same no matter how much the wireis scaled down. To make mat-
ters worse, the bandwidth of electronic signals is also limited by
inductance at higher frequencies.
Because of t heir higher frequency in the electromagnetic spec-
trum, photons have a much greater potential bandwidth than
I Defining terms
Send gap: the minimum energy required for a valence etec-
tron in a semiconductor to become a conduction electron that
can move more freely throughout the crystal.
BlalabUlly: the property of having two stable output states for
a given Input, characteristic of some nonlinear devices.
Index of refraction: the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum
to the speed of light In the material.
L.lt-rGar " ..tv.;.I: a matena'.such as glass,that iE;sponds linear
Iy to light at intensities of Interest, yielding an output whose
intensity is always directly proportional to the Input intensity.
Nonlinear material: a material, such as gallium arsenide, that
will yield an output whose intensity is not linearly related to
its input; for example, above a certain Input Intensity. the rna-
tertat may turn transparent instead of opaque, or vice versa.
Par.II.Ulm: a term with two definitions, depending on the con-
text: in digital optical computing, it means the ability to per-
form a large number of operations simultaneously but lnde-
pendently~ such as switching all the optlcallogic gates in an
entire two-dImensional array; when applied to neural networks,
it means the ability to affect all the neurons simultaneously
but dependently, since the network architecture creates feed
back among all the elements.
Photorefl'lctlve material: a material whose free carriers (elec
trons and holes) can be moved around by exposing it to light;
concentrations or depletions of charges in regions of the
material induce electric fields that alter the Index of refraction.
QU8ntum well: a thin layer of a material of smaller band gap
(such as gallium arsenide) sandwiched between layers of larg-
er band gap (such as aluminum gallium arsenide), which quan-
tum-mecharuceny confines the electrons In the smaller band-
gap material; multiple quantum-wen materials (those built of
many quantum welts) often have physical properties not found
in bulk quantities of either of the constituent materials.
36
radio waves, givingpbotonic communications a much greater in-
formation-carrying capacity than electronic communications.
Since photons haveno charge, they do not easily interact. Beams
of light can pass through one another with little or no effect, and
light-carryingfiberscan lie next to one another with no crosstalk
or electromagnetic interference. In addition the bandwidthof light
travelingthrough a fiber is not limited by resistance, capacitance,
or inductance.
Even more dramatic, photons need not be confined to a wave-
guide-the optical equivalent of a wire-but can travel freely
through space. Not only can photons carry information from
point to point, but they can also broadcast information from one
point to many points, or focus it from many points to one point.
The possible payoff: arbitrary, global connections from arrays
of transmitters to arraysof receivers at the speed of light, without
a spaghettilike tangle of wires connecting every point to every
other point. Giventhe broadcasting capability of photons, some
computer architects are working on alternatives to electronic
parallel processing for manipulating data in two.. dimensional bit
planes as well as one..dimensional bit streams.
To be sure, the lack of interaction between photons makes it
difficult to useone beam of light to modulate or switchanother,
so the search is on for a good, practical optical analog to the
transistor. Believing that the "optical transistor" may be one of
the three-port devices already in the laboratory, some research-
ers havebegundesigning and fabricating prototype optical logic
gates.
Although the physicsof electrons and photons havebeen well
known for decades,their similarities and differencesare particu-
larly intriguing nowbecausecertain materials, ranging from bulk
gallium arsenide to many-layered multiple quantum-well struc-
tures, excel in both electronic and optical properties. Furthermore,
with the rise of fiber-opticcommunications and high-speed elec-
tronic circuits, the technology for fabricating gallium arsenide
electronic and electrooptical devicesand circuits has matured to
the point whereit now seems practical to incorporate photonic
technology into computers.
What is optical computing?
The state of flux in the field is such that even the meaning of
optical computing is debated; there are almost as many defini-
tions for the phrase as there are researchers.
Some researchers, taking their cue from digital electroniccom-
puting, defineoptical computing very narrowly:the abilityto solve
a:wide variety of general-purpose
_ ...... 11 __ .L_6
problems.1 To others
: _ 1_ ....__ :
it means
.: __ I:_L. _ .__
v IIluauy ClUy jJlu\;Q~ LIIClL IIICl1UVUIi1lQ ~1!SlIal..,,;cuI YIII!; Ul;IIL, ~CII
if the processcannot beprogrammed to do more than one special-
ized task.
Others have opted for an operational definition. "My defini-
tion of optical computing is the application of optical techniques
and concepts to the computational requirements of the Strategic
DefenseInitiative, said WilliamJ. Miceli,scienceand technology
tt
agent for the SDI program at the U.S. Office of Naval Research
in Boston. "That may be hedging, but it says that I want to em-
phasize computing requirements. I also wanted to define it to in-
clude analog processing, because some of the things we need to
do do defy digital computing."
Still other researchers do not worry much about the definition
at all. I callit computingor signalprocessingdependingon what
U
conference I'm attending to present my results," quipped John
N. Lee, research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in
\Vashington, D.C.
At first glance, the diversityof viewsabout the essenceof opti-
cal computing appears to besimplya matter of taxonomy, reflect-
ing the field'svarioushistorical roots: digital electronic comput-
ing, fiber-opticcommunications, optical signal processing, and
optical image processing [see "The checkered history of optical
computing, " p, 37).The diversity reflects the current excitement
and rate of change in the field, as well as the radically different
approaches of many researchers.
IEEE SPECTRUM AUGUST 1986
 TM chtlck8red histoIy of optical computing
Thek:le8of optleal computing i8 not new.Accordingto a hi&-
totical anaiyslsbyJoaeph W.Goodman, prof8l8OfOf electrt..
cal engineering at Stanford University In California. certain
theoretical roots of fourier transforms and spatial fltterlng
date back to the nineteenth C8fdwy. Over the years at least
four distinct branches evolved Into analog optical comput-
ing: Image processing using spatial filtering of coherent
light; pattern recognition using matched filters; signal pre-
cessing using acoustooptlc deVICes; and matrix~tor mul..
tipllcatlon using discrete optical processors.
The common denominator for aU these data processing
applications ls the availability of coherent light. Although
some early experiments were conducted with mercury arc
lamps and even sunlight In the late 1950~ 8 major Impetus
for optlcat computing was the development of th6 laser In
the early 1960a
The development of soUd..s tate lasers and of holography
in the 1960s also seemed tc.premtse all mannerof wonder-
ful possibilities fer laser logic and digital optical computing.
In the early and middle 19608, researchers at ,aM and etse-
where explored the potential of digital computing with pho-
tons Instead of electrons. However. the digital techniques
seemed Impractical because of limitations in the physics
and technOlogy of ~n~tarialsand the devices that apparent-
Iy cou!d be ouilt from them.
M~~~ ttf ~h18 ~any research in optical logic concentrated
on LJatea that could b~ bunt ffom sOUdstlle lasere,Gordon
J. Lasherand Alan B.Fowler at IBM's ThomasJ. WatsonRe-
searchCenter. for example, proposedtwo lasersIn a crossed
configuration so that If one were activated it would quench
the other, creating a bistable device. But after analyzing the
requirements of this type of laser logic and the capabilities
of then-known nonlinearmaterials,the IBMworkers conclud-
ed that such physical considerations as high hoat disslpa",
tlon and small bistable affects rendered them Impractical.
Aiter & jew years tnu WOlf( Wa~ tf5titnliitiiiy aoaruJofloo ai
IBM. Researchers elsewherewerealso affected by the pessl..
But according to a few investigators, the confusion may be far
more fundamental, penetrating to the heart of the field.
One might well ask: Isn't optical computing simply whatever
"computing" is, but performed by optical instead of electronic
means? If so, what is computing?
It is doubtful that many engineers would disagree that a Cray
supercomputer is indeed computing when it is numerically calcu-
lating the answers to 20 chemical rate equations with 20 un-
knowns. On the other hand, optical computing researchers point
to synthetic-aperture radar, the first commercial success for opti-
cal computing, as a clear demonstration of the superiority of op-
tics over electronics for certain analyses. But can it really be said
that such optical signal processing-which converts incoming
radar signals to an interference pattern on a hologram and then
uses lenses to project a visual reconstruction of terrain onto a
strip of film-is "computing" in the same sense as the perfor-
mance of the Cray? At no time in the process are numbers ex-
plicitly represented; instead the input, processing, and output are
all wavefronts and phase changes and analog signals.Aren't num-
bers what computation is all about?
Not necessarily, said C. Lee Giles, program manager of the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research in Washington, D.C. He went
on to address what he sees as the basic confusion: "Theoretical
computer science gives a definition of computation-what it is,
what it does. and what characterizes it. Just as physics governs
the limits of the physical reality of optics, theoretical computer
science governs the limits of computation. U
Theoretical computer science defines computation by means
of computational models-theoretical abstractions that repre-
sent an effective procedure (that is, an algorithm) for realizing
the solution to a problem. Computational models also determine
whether a problem is truly computable. The computational model
BcU-optical computins: a field in flux
mtsrn of Rolf landauer, Robert Keye~ and John Armstrong
In judging ,whether practleat thretrtermlnal optical tranaha-
tors couldeverbe buUt.lnaddltlon, the development of inte-
grated circuits and fast electronIc computing techn,IQuea
threatened to leave opttcsttecnnlques In the dUSt.
In the 197Os, however,AT&T Bell L.abomtorlea Invented the
f'OOfTrtemperature laserdi~ atechnology thatwasbrought
to 8 high level of development for fiber-optic communlca~
uons, Multiple quantum-weU materials were developed In
sophisticated crystal-growth techniques, making It possible
to grow materlalGhaving much stronger nonlinear proper..
ties than bulk materialSy or properties obtalnab!e at room
temperatureratherthan onlywhen the material wascookld.
Theseand other technologicaldevelopments. plus a percep-
tion that standardd!gltal electroniccomps..1ars maybe reac~
Ing limits In certain areas. have revived the hopes of many
researchers In optical computing.
Some of the Investigators whohad looked into digital op-
tical computing In the 19608.however-notably Landauer
and others at IBM-are stili skeptical about Ita feasibility.
They feel t~.~t the problems encountered In the 1960& are
basic to the physics Invol\-ed, reot fr1erely the technology.
Consequently they fear that ~!Jrrent researchers. unfamiliar
with the work QOO analysesdonein the past. may be doomed
to royaa.t the failur.8-s of 15 or 20 years ago.
Landauerobserved: "tt I~ of course,obYlous that wehave
"lot beena hotbed of activity in this field overthe last decade.
Toa large extent, however, that reflects the wisdom gained
In earlier rounds. An that doesn't necessarily make us right.
But our conservative evaluatlon Is not just the expression
of sUlcon bigots, nor Is It sour grapes."
Some of their reservations are discussed In more detail
In the concluding section of this report [see leprospects and
pitfalls." page 55], along with tho responses of today'8 op-
tical computing researchers. In the words of Alan Huang of
~':~=i~:f:~;i~~ ~~~~~~:~~~~Ii.ng it can't ~;'E~B. J
most familiar to computer scientists-and the one that underlies
all digital electronic computers-is the 'luring machine. All such
computational models are described in terms of an input, an out-
put, the possible states of the system, and various mappings from
one state to another to determine how decisions are made.
According to Giles and his colleague B. Keith Jenkins, research
assistant professor in the electrical engineering department at the
Universityof Southern California in Los Angeles,there are several
key points to be made about such computational models as they
relate to optics:
While the models are discrete, the machine may be analog or
digital, although at least some sort of threshold is needed for the
machine to tell whether it is in one state or another.
A mapping determines what the machine is to do, based on
both its prevailing state and the nature of the input; it requires
the machine to make some sort of decision. However. making
a decision need not imply the use of conventional logic gates,
Jenkins said, although it does require some sort of nonlinearity.
"Another implementation of logic would be a light filter that
would make one wavelengthgo in one direction and another wave-
length go in another," he said.
An algorithm can be encoded as a language or as numbers-or
it can even be hard-wired; it need not be restricted to numerical
representation.
The definition of computation does not require that a machine
be general-purpose or programmable.
Abstract computational models set ultimate limits on the effi-
ciency of their architectures for computing real problems.
What is the verdict? In terms of theoretical computer science,
synthetic-aperture radar and optical signal processingindeed seem
to be computation, just as valid as a computation performed on
a digital electronic Cray. So Lee is correct in not making the
37
distinction.. On the other hand,optical computing aIsoencom-
passes digital and analog techniques. So Miceliis also correct in
not excludingeither.
Giles and Jenkins are two of a handful of researchers who in
the last coupleof years have been trying to apply theoretical com-
puter scienceto optical computing. Theyare expandingthe work
of Alan Huang, head of the optical computing research depart-
mentat AT&T BeD Laboratories in Holmdel.N.J.oneofthe first
inl--estigators to point out that computational modelscan be used
to design an optical computing architecture.
Jenkins feels that the confusion about the essence of optical
computing has ariseen in pan froma failureto return to fundamen-
tals.. UComputational models teU you what you can and cannot
compute. t, he said. "Architecturesare functional representations
of computational models-what you maketo implement those
models. And hardware is wherethe optics comes in, because the
architecture guides you in building an actual machine. I feel the
distinctions are very important, because people in optical com-
puting havebeen jugglingall three. and they don't point out care-
fully which one they are working OD. "
There is, however, one important caveat. In Giles's view, tbeo-
PHOTONS IN THE SERVICE OF ELECTRONS
"Electronicscan make a lQ.picosecond transistor, but it's very
difficult to make a IO-picosecond wire," remarked AT&T's Alan
Huang. Not surprisingly, all investigators want to capitalize on
the superiorityof photons to electronicsin handling communica-
tions and interconnections.
Engineersand scientists in half a dozen major laboratories are
developing hybrid electronic-optical computing systems to take
advantage of the speed of both electronic logic and fast optical
Interconnections, Photons arethus entering computersevenbefore
a full-blown optical computer is built.
Communicating at the speed of light
Accordingto Huang, a hierarchyof communications problems
can be identified in electronic computers, with communication
from machineto machine beingat the highest level. Already "op-
tics has penetrated this highest level in the form of fiber-optic
local area networks:' said Joseph W. Goodman. professor of
I
I
I
~
III 55-5 digital switch-
ing computer manufac-
tured by AT&Tuses opti..
colfibers 10 interconnect
electronic circuit boards.
Each of the white cables
containsQ bundleofoptt-
adf~ onemb/e is held
up 10 Tnteol the fibers.
38
retieal computer science bas Ustuck its neck out" by saying that
computational models defme anything that is computable, since
it is unknown whether there are tasks these models cannot per-
form that the human brain can.
"A classic eumple is the halting problem, n Giles noted. Cc,A
computer can't figure out for itself whether it's reached the end
of an arbitrary program. It can't know that. And you can't make
. a program that will tell you (whether the end of a program has
been reached). That's why you must teU the computer to stop.
Yet very few people get in Inflniteloops." 1b giveotherexamples,
a computer cannot generate truly random numbers,or carry on
an intelligent conversation.
Fer thosewho are designingeitherelectronicor optical architec-
tures based on the pattern of neurons in the brain, this caveat
is crucial. At this stage in the development of theoretical com-
puter science-a discipline less than SO yearsold-it remains to
beseenwhetherneural networkarchitectures representa newcom-
putational model,
As for the question "What is optical computing?" the answer
seems to be: the optical implementation of all that is known to
be computation-and possibly a good deal more.
electrical engineering at Stanford University in California.
At thesecond level arecommunications within a single machine,
from processor to memory or from processor to processor-in
short, frommoduleto module. Themostadvanced work on mod-
ule-to-module communications is being done in Japan, where
investigatorsat the ElectrotechnicalLaboratory of the Ministry
of International 'Iradeand Industry in 'Isukuba ScienceCity have
developed an optical data bus withina fifth-generationcomputer
called the Dialog.H,
Accordingto Goodman, who examinedthis computer several
yearsago and discussed an upgraded versionof it with Japanese
researchers when be was in Janan in late May, the optical commu..
nications are noteworthy because they are not carried by optical
fibers but are transmitted through free space,
"The processors and their local memories are arranged like
spokesof a wheelaround a bub," Goodman recounted, "On the
hub is a convexcircular mirror. Each [processor and memory)
IEEE SPECTRUM AUGUST 1986