Table of Contents

Abstract i
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 What Is An Optical Computing 2
2. BACKGROUND 3
3. THE END OF ELECTRON-BASED COMPUTING 4
4. TYPES OF OPTICAL COMPUTING 5
4.1 Electro-Optical Hybrid Computers 5
4.2 Pure Optical Computers 5

5. SOME KEY OPTICAL COMPONENTS FOR COMPUTING 6

5.1 Optical Transistors 8
5.2 Photonic Crystals 9

5.2.1 Light localization 10

5.2.2 Logic gates using photonic crystals 12

6. CURRENT WORK AND IMPROVEMENTS 13

6.1 Lenslet’s EnLight Optical Processor 13
6.2 HP Lab's Experimental Optical Processor 14

6.3 Optalysys optical processing powers convolutional neural network 15

7. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMPUTING 16

8. THE FUTURE 17
9. CONCLUSION 18
10. REFERENCES 19
 ABSTRACT

With the growth of computing technology the need of high performance computers (HPC)
has significantly increased. Optics has been used in computing for a number of years but the
main emphasis has been and continues to be to link portions of computers, for
communications, or more intrinsically in devices that have some optical application or
component.

Optical computing was a hot research area in 1980s. But the work tapered off due to
materials limitations that prevented optochips from getting small enough and cheap enough
beyond laboratory curiosities. Now, optical computers are back with advances in self-
assembled conducting organic polymers that promise super-tiny of all optical chips.

Optical computing technology is, in general, developing in two directions. One approach is to
build computers that have the same architecture as present day computers but using optics
that is Electro optical hybrids. Another approach is to generate a completely new kind of
computer, which can perform all functional operations in optical mode. In recent years, a
number of devices that can ultimately lead us to real optical computers have already been
manufactured. These include optical logic gates, optical switches, optical interconnections
and optical memory.

Optical computing describes a new technological approach for constructing computers

processors and other components. Instead of the current approach of electrically transmitting
data along tiny wires etched in to silicon. Optical computing employs a technology called
silicon photonics that uses laser light instead. This use of optical lasers overcome the
constrains associated with heat dissipation in todays components and allows much more
information to be stored and transmitted in the same amount of space.
 Optical Computing

1.INTRODUCTION
Optical or photonic computing uses photons produced by lasers or diodes for
computation. In recent years, a number of devices that can ultimately lead us to real optical
computers have already been manufactured. These include optical logic gates, optical
switches, optical interconnections, and optical memory. High-density physical integration
optical switching devices have been achieved. Optical devices can have switching speeds of
the order of 10-15 seconds with power requirements as low as 10-6 watts. Two types of
optical processors have been under active development, namely numeric and nonnumeric.
Numeric processors include logic multiplication unit, optical arithmetic unit and optical
correlator. Non-numeric processors for optical text processing and optical knowledge based
processing have shown good results.
Among the most crucial performance-limiting factors of today's very large-scale
integrated circuits are the limited pin number and the low bandwidth of interconnections,
rather than the chip's processing power. (For example, the Japanese Earth Simulator, a
computer system developed by NEC, uses a processor IC with 5,000 pins.) Much more
performance will be achieved if chip-to-chip data transfer can be realized by fast links
leaving the circuit directly out from the chip's surface instead of via the chip's edge. Arrays of
optical modulators or vertical surface emitting lasers, that can be flip-chip bonded onto
complementary metal oxide semiconductor circuits, promise to offer a solution for the
bottleneck in chip-to-chip communications.
Optical interconnections for VLSI systems also offer massive parallelism and three-
dimensional interconnection capabilities. During the last decade, significant advances have
been achieved in the field of optoelectronics VLSI (OE-VLSI) and microelectronics. Arrays
of OE-VLSI circuits linked together by 3-D optical interconnections based on free space
optics offer a kind of natural pipeline. It is possible now to design circuitry within the OE-
VLSI chip as an array processing structure. This will help to combine the two most popular
parallel processing techniques: pipelining and array processing. This is of great interest for
the design of innovative 3-D arithmetic units that can serve as the core for future 3-D
processors. It is envisaged that such architectures offer potential for a significant increase of
computing performance, which would not be possible by using only all-electronic
technology. It may also be considered as a road map for a future massively parallel
optoelectronic supercomputer system.
An interesting suggestion is that such systems can consist of multiple clusters, which
can be directly mounted with a silicon spacer on a glass substrate. Inside the glass substrate,
the optical interconnections are to run along zigzag paths. Additionally, diffractive optical
elements are etched in a glass substrate's surface to realize the optical interconnections, which
link the OE-VLSI circuit.
Optical computing technology is, in general, developing in two directions. One
approach is to build computers that have the same architecture as present day computers but
using optics. Another approach is to generate a completely new kind of computer, which can
perform all functional operations in an optical mode. The research carried out to date
suggests that all optical computers are far from reality and a hybrid system could be tested for

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typical mathematical/functional operations. Performance benchmark reports in this direction

could push optoelectronic-computing systems out of laboratories and encourage more
research towards cost effective user friendliness.
1.1 What is an “Optical Computing”

An optical computer (also called a photonic computer) is a device that uses

the photons in visible light or infrared ( IR ) beams,rather than electric current, to perform
digital computations. An electric current flows at only about 10 percent of the speed of light.

Visible-light and IR beams, unlike electric currents, pass through each other without
interacting. Several (or many) laser beams can be shone so their paths intersect, but there is
no interference among the beams, even when they are confined essentially to two dimensions.
Electric currents must be guided around each other, and this makes three-dimensional wiring
necessary. Thus, an optical computer, besides being much faster than an electronic one, might
also be smaller.

Some engineers think optical computing will someday be common, but most agree
that transitions will occur in specialized areas one at a time. Some optical integrated circuits
have been designed and manufactured. (At least one complete, although rather large,
computer has been built using optical circuits.) Three-dimensional, full-motion video can be
transmitted along a bundle of fibers by breaking the image into voxels. Some optical devices
can be controlled by electronic currents, even though the impulses carrying the data are
visible light or IR.

Optical technology has made its most significant inroads in digital communications,

where fiber optic data transmission has become commonplace. The ultimate goal is the so-
called photonic network , which uses visible and IR energy exclusively between each source
and destination. Optical technology is employed in CD-ROM drives and their relatives, laser
printers, and most photocopiers and scanners. However, none of these devices are fully
optical; all rely to some extent on conventional electronic circuits and components.

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2.BACKGROUND
Optical computing was a hot research area in the 1980s. But the work tapered off
because of materials limitations that seemed to prevent opto-chips from getting small enough
and cheap enough to be more than laboratory curiosities. Now, optical computers are back
with advances in self-assembled conducting organic polymers that promise super-tiny all-
optical chips. Advances in optical storage device have generated the promise of efficient,
compact and large-scale storage devices. Another advantage of optical methods over
electronic one’s for computing is that parallel data processing can frequently be done much
more easily and less expensively in optics than in electronics. Parallelism, the capability to
execute more than one operation simultaneously, is now common in electronic computer
architectures. But most electronic computers still execute instructions sequentially;
parallelism with electronics remains sparsely used. Its first widespread appearance was in
Cray supercomputers in the early 1980's when two processors were used in conjunction with
one shared memory. Today, large supercomputers may utilize thousands of processors but
communication overhead frequently results in reduced overall efficiency. On the other hand
for some applications in input-output (l/O), such as image processing, by using a simple
optical design an array of pixels can be transferred simultaneously in parallel from one point
to another.
Optical technology promises massive upgrades in the efficiency and speed of
computers, as well as significant shrinkage in their size and cost. An optical desktop
computer could be capable of processing data up to 100,000 times faster than current models
because multiple operations can be performed simultaneously. Other advantages of optics
include low manufacturing costs, immunity to electromagnetic interference, a tolerance for
low loss transmissions, freedom from short electrical circuits and the capability to supply
large bandwidth and propagate signals within the same or adjacent fibers without
interference. One oversimplified example may help to appreciate the difference between
optical and electronic parallelism. Consider an imaging system with 1000 x 1000 independent
points per mm2 in the object plane which are connected optically by a lens to a corresponding
number of points per mm2 in the image plane the lens effectively performs an FFT of the
image plane in real time. For this to be accomplished electrically, a million operations are
required.
Parallelism, when associated with fast switching speeds, would result in staggering
computational speeds. Assume, for example, there are only 100 million gates on a chip, much
less than what was mentioned earlier (optical integration is still in its infancy compared to
electronics). Further, conservatively assume that each gate operates with a switching time of
only 1 nanosecond (organic optical switches can switch at sub-picosecond rates compared to
maximum picosecond switching times for electronic switching). Such a system could perform
more than 1017 bit operations per second. Compare this to the gigabits (10 9) or terabits (1012)
per second rates which electronics are either currently limited to, or hoping to achieve. In
other words, a computation that might require one hundred thousand hours (more than 11
years) of a conventional computer time could require less than one hour by an optical one.
But building an optical computer will not be easy. A major challenge is finding
materials that can be mass produced yet consume little power; for this reason, optical
computers may not hit the consumer market for 10 to 15 years.

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3.THE END OF ELECTRON-BASED COMPUTING

In 1954 the first silicon transistor was comparable in size to a US postage stamp. In
1965 co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, predicted the number of transistors fitting onto a
chip doubling every two years. This prediction was later called Moore's Law and was very
accurate up through the beginning of the 21st century. While the exponential growth
predicted hasn't stopped completely it has slowed down. Today silicon transistors rapidly
approach ~10nm across, the theoretical minimum size for electron-based computing. This
limitation is due to the quantum nature of electrons, where the electron can simply tunnel
through the transistor as if it weren't there. The 5nm minimum size imposes a maximum
number of transistors and maximum speed of computation. This limitation can be mitigated
by parallel processing, or multiple processors running in tandem, but this in turn generates
more heat and is difficult to program for. Current chips are made with a two dimensional
model, they could be made three dimensional to increase possible number of transistors but
this increases cooling problems (cooling is related to surface area, a cube has much less than
a chip of similar volume), power consumption, as well as tunneling issues as before.

Another fundamental limitation of electron based computing is the use of electrons. In

addition to quantum tunneling they travel relatively slowly. A material's drift velocity is the
speed at which electrons move in a wire. Silicon's drift velocity depends on temperature,
doping, and applied current, but tops out in the range of 107 cm/s for undoped silicon. This
figure is slightly misleading in that one does not need the original electron sent to arrive at a
destination, but the electron that your sent electron smashed into and catapulted forward
many times over. This propagation wave is approximately the speed of light.

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4.TYPES OF OPTICAL COMPUTING

There are two types of optical computers
 Electro-Optical hybrid computers.
 Pure optical computers.

4.1 Electro-Optical Hybrid Computers

Electro-optical hybrid computer chips will integrate high speed photonic components
with low cost electrical components onto a single chip. Scientists and researchers have begun
to turn to this for creating computer components as a means of overcoming the high cost of
photonic computer chip creation. Computers which integrate both photonic and electronic
components will contain an electronic processor connected to a variety of electronic and
photonic components. In order to accomplish this, components will need to be able to convert
electrons to photons. Intel has devised a variety of ways of doing this. One way they have
come up with is by changing the construction of a standard silicon chip by infusing a small
amount of cerium or erbium into a layer of silicon dioxide laced with silicon nanocrystals. In
doing so Intel has managed to, in essence, turn an entire silicon chip into a light emitting
diode (LED) which can glow in response to a small voltage. The chip could flicker at the
same rate as the electron flow going through it. The light given off by this could then be fed
into a series of etching disks (microscopic disks of silicon dioxide perched on silicon pillars).
When the light enters a disk it circles the edge of the disk several millions of times, building
in intensity until it is finally emitted as laser light which could then be fed into an optical
component. Another more simplistic approach also devised by Intel is a modulator which has
the ability to modulate pulses given off by a laser beam so they are in time with the electrons
flowing through the modulator. The modulator first breaks up the laser light into two waves
each paired with a capacitor. When the capacitors – charged with the electron flow – become
fully charged they unleash static electricity which interacts with the two separate light waves.
When the two altered halves of the original light wave rejoin the troughs and crests of the
waves interfere with each other resulting in the light wave to pulse in the same pattern as the
electron flow. Photons would then travel to any required photonic chips, which would be
small due to the high price of III-V semiconductors or to the electrical CPU where they could
be detected by photon detectors and processed as data. Optical-electrical hybrid systems do,
however, face one problem. Optical III-V microchips begin to break down at 80 degrees
Celsius, the temperature electrical processors typically reach when operating. This would
mean that hybrid systems would need to have III-V chips far enough away on the mother
boards so as to not overheat, which could detract from the potential performance of the
system.
4.2 Pure Optical Computers
This type of optical computer uses multiple frequencies to send the information
through the computer as light waves. Unlike the Electro-Optical model, there is no use of
electricity; it strictly uses optics to transmit data. Therefore, there is no need to convert the
information from binary to optical, which increases the speed of the processing.

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5.SOME KEY OPTICAL COMPONENTS FOR COMPUTING

The major breakthroughs on optical computing have been centred on the development
of micro-optic devices for data input. Conventional lasers are known as 'edge emitters'
because their laser light comes out from the edges. Also, their laser cavities run horizontally
along their length. A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL - pronounced 'vixel'),
however, gives out laser light from its surface and has a laser cavity that is vertical; hence the
name. VCSEL is a semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting micro-laser diode that
emits light in a cylindrical beam vertically from the surface .of a fabricated wafer, and offers
significant advantages when compared to the edge-emitting lasers currently used in the
majority of fiber optic communications devices. They emit at 850 nm and have rather low
thresholds (typically a few mA). They are very fast and can give mW of coupled Power into a
50 micron core fiber and are extremely radiation hard. VCSELS can be tested at the wafer
level (as opposed to edge emitting lasers which have to be cut and cleaved before they can be
tested) and hence are relatively cheap. In fact, VCSELs can be fabricated efficiently on a 3-
inch diameter wafer. The principles involved in the operation of a VCSEL are very similar to
those of regular lasers. There are two special semiconductor materials sandwiching an active
layer where all the action takes place. But rather than reflective ends, in a VCSEL there are
several layers of partially reflective mirrors above and below the active layer. Layers of
semiconductor with differing compositions create these mirrors, and each mirror reflects a
narrow range of wavelengths back into the cavity in order to cause light emission at just one
wavelength.

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) play an important role in several technical areas where the
control of light on a pixel-by pixel basis is a key element, such as optical processing, for

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inputting information on light beams, and displays. For display purposes the desire is to have
as many pixels as possible in as small and cheap a device as possible. For such purposes
designing silicon chips for use as spatial light modulators has been effective. The basic idea is
to have a set of memory cells laid out on a regular grid. These cells are electrically connected
to metal mirrors, such that the voltage on the mirror depends on the value stored in the
memory cell. A layer of optically active liquid crystal is sandwiched between this array of
mirrors and a piece of glass with a conductive coating. The voltage between individual
mirrors and the front electrode affects the optical activity of the liquid crystal in that
neighbourhood. Hence by being able to individually program the memory locations one can
set up a pattern of optical activity in the liquid crystal layer. Figure 2(a) shows a reflective
256x256 pixel device based on SRAM technology. Several technologies have contributed to
the development of SLMs. These include micro-electro-mechanical devices, such as, acoustic
optic modulators (AOMs), and pixelated electro optical devices, such as liquid-crystal
modulators (LCMs). Figure 2(b) shows a simple AOM operation in deflecting light beam
direction. Encompassed within these categories are amplitude only, phase-only, or amplitude
phase modulators.

Broadly speaking, an optical computer is a computer in which light is used somewhere. This
can means fiber optical connections between electronic components, free space connections,
or one in which light functions as a mechanism for storage of data, logic or arithmetic.
Instead of electrons in silicon integrated circuits, the digital optical computers will be based

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on photons. Smart pixels, the union of optics and electronics, both expands the capabilities of
electronic systems and enables optical systems with high levels of electronic signal
processing. Thus, smart pixel systems add value to electronics through optical input/output
and interconnection, and value is added to optical systems through electronic enhancements
which include gain, feedback control, and image processing and compression. Smart pixel
technology is a relatively new approach to integrating electronic circuitry and optoelectronic
devices in a common framework.
5.1 Optical Transistors

An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch, is a device that switches or

amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor’s input changes the intensity
of light emitted from the transistor’s output. Output power is supplied by an additional optical
source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical
transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic
transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a
means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-
optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of
electronics, while consuming less power.

photons inherently do not interact with each other, an optical transistor must employ
an operating medium to mediate interactions. This is done without converting optical to
electronic signals as an intermediate step. Implementations using a variety of operating
mediums have been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. However, their ability to
compete with modern electronics is currently limited.

5.2 Photonic Crystals

A photonic crystal is a periodic optical nanostructure that affects the motion of

photons in much the same way that ionic lattices affect electrons in solids. Photonic crystals
occur in nature in the form of structural coloration and animal reflectors, and, in different
forms, promise to be useful in a range of applications.

When it comes to computing, one of the primary bottlenecks in increasing data

transfer rates is the conversion time required from optics to electronics when the signal
reaches a semiconductor microprocessor. One approach to addressing this problem would be
converting systems to ones that are based on optics, with optical microprocessors in place of
semiconductor microprocessors. Achieving this feat would lead to an era of all-optical
information processing.

Optics, however, is not the sole technology eyed for the future of computing. Myriad
technologies, known as quantum computing technologies, are also under consideration. Even
though they lack some of the advantages of photonics, they have immense potential to
overtake conventional systems.

Information processing in photonics is currently handled by artificial structures known as

photonic crystals1. These dielectric structures can be made from materials such as silicon,
compound semiconductors or polymers. The functionality of these structures depends on the
periodic variation in refractive index, which results in photonic band gap in the structure at a
particular frequency range.

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5.2.1 Light localization

These structures, which reflect light in the forbidden frequency range, prohibit the
light’s passage through it. Alternatively, if there is a defect in the periodic structure, such as a
line defect that forms a waveguide or a point defect that creates a cavity, the forbidden
frequencies can be confined within the structure with little propagation loss2. This
phenomenon, known as light localization, was first predicted in 1987 and has come to fruition
with photonic crystals3. A cavity created in a photonic crystal due to a point defect is
illustrated in Figure 1.

Cavities in photonic crystals can be used for creating optical logic gates, the building
blocks of computing. All arithmetic and logic operations are carried out in a computer
making use of logic gates — a modern PC relies on them to perform tasks based on the
program stored in its memory.

Once the technology for implementing logic gates is in place, it is a pretty

straightforward process toward realizing an optical microprocessor. Among various logic
gates, NAND and NOR are said to be universal gates since they can be used for performing
all other logical operations. In other words, a combination of NOT along with AND or OR
can be used for making all logical operations. Here, the implementation of NOT and OR
gates using photonic crystals is covered.

In optics, switching can be realized using optical cavities. An optical cavity supports
only certain wavelengths depending on the length and refractive index of the cavity. More
specifically, the length of the cavity should be an integral multiple of half the wavelength.
This ensures that nodes are formed at both the ends of the cavity. Once the length of the

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cavity is fixed, its transfer properties depend on refractive index only. However, when the
intensity of the light is sufficiently high, the refractive index depends on intensity of light,
too. This phenomenon, known as the optical “Kerr effect”, can be harnessed for achieving
optical switching with an optical cavity4. In this technique, a laser pulse is used to change the
refractive index of the cavity medium, which, in turn, enables the system to switch to another
logical state (Figure 2).

For realizing logic gates based on this technique, two types of cavity configurations
can be used. The first configuration involves a cavity length set to have resonance
wavelength below the wavelength of input light (Figure 2a). In the other configuration, the
cavity length is set to have resonance wavelength at the wavelength of input light (Figure 2b).
In the first case, the change in refractive index caused by the laser pulse tunes the input
wavelength to match the resonance wavelength of the cavity. In the second case, the laser
pulse causes the resonance wavelength to differ from the input wavelength, prohibiting the
passage of light through the cavity. Both of these switching approaches can be put to good
use for creating optical logic gates.

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5.2.2 Logic gates using photonic crystals

The implementation of a NOT gate using a photonic crystal is considered first. For
this purpose, the optical cavity considered here has a resonance wavelength the same as that
of the incident light. This cavity is represented by S in Figure 3. The optical cavity serves as
the coupling point between input and output waveguides. A bias light sent through the input
waveguide is coupled with the optical cavity and crosses over to reach the output waveguide,
as the resonance wavelength of the cavity is the same as that of the input light. On the other
hand, when a laser pulse is sent along with the bias light, because of the high intensity of the
laser, the refractive index of the cavity medium is altered, prohibiting the coupling of light
into the output waveguide. This scheme is useful for realizing a NOT gate. Here, the presence
of a laser pulse denotes a logical one state at the input waveguide. Because of the change in
refractive index of the cavity, this laser pulse detunes the resonance wavelength away from
the resonance condition and hence the output turns logical zero. But in the absence of a laser
pulse that denotes a logical zero state at the input, the coupling is effective, and the light
reaches the output waveguide representing a logical one state. This circuit that satisfies the
NOT logical operations can be used for creating a NOT gate (Figure 3).

The operation of an OR gate using photonic crystals is considered next. The circuit
for realizing this gate consists of three optical cavities: Two of them are coupled to input
waveguides; the third one acts as the coupling point between input and output waveguides
and is also coupled to both of these cavities. The cavities, L, coupled to input waveguides
have resonance wavelength lower than that of the bias light (Figure 4b). Conversely, the third
cavity, S, coupled to output waveguide has resonance wavelength set to be the same as that of
the bias light. The bias light from the input waveguides cannot traverse the cavity since its
wavelength does not match the resonance wavelength of the cavity. This constraint can be
sorted out by sending a high-intensity laser pulse that enables the cavity to achieve resonance

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with the wavelength of bias light because of the change in refractive index of the cavity
medium. In this way, the high-intensity laser pulse enables the cavity to open up for the bias
light.

The presence of a laser pulse at the input waveguide denotes a logical one state,
whereas its absence denotes a logical zero. Once the bias light reaches any of the two
intermediate cavities, it will be coupled to the third cavity, which has a resonance wavelength
the same as that of the bias light. Subsequently, the bias light will reach the output waveguide
by its coupling with the third cavity.

The presence of light at the output waveguide denotes a logical one state, whereas its absence
denotes a logical zero state. In this way, the circuit with three optical cavities can effectively
execute OR logical operations for realizing an OR gate (Figure 4).

It is possible to realize the universal gate NOR by combining the NOT and OR gates.
Further, an AND gate can be derived from a proper combination of NOR gates, as practiced
in digital circuitry. This makes it possible to realize an optical microprocessor using photonic
crystals.

The advancement of photonic crystals in optical computing would give an impetus for
further venturing into the arena of quantum computing. The availability of high-quality-factor
optical cavities and coherent light sources such as lasers makes photonics an appealing
platform for this paradigm shift in computation.

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6. CURRENT WORK AND IMPROVEMENTS

6.1 Lenslet’s EnLight Optical Processor

Lenslet’s EnLight Optical Processor combines optics, silicon, communication

interfaces, and development tools in a standard electronic board format. EnLight 64 delivers
240 Giga MAC ops/sec. It’s said to be the first programmable optical processor. Enlight 256,
under development, reportedly boosts standard DSP performance by three orders of
magnitude, and said to achieve 1,000x faster operation. Israel-based Lenslet Ltd. says the
EnLight256 carries a specification of up to 8-Tera (1,012) multiply-accumulate (MAC)
operations per second, or 8,000 GMAC/s.

In addition, EnLight256 is a general-purpose, fixed-point ODSP with an embedded

optical core. It consists of three elements: vector matrix multiplier (VMM) that performs its
ultra-fast vector-matrix operations; vector processor unit (VPU) that handles 128 Giga
operations per second; and standard DSP (TI’s TMS320C64xx) for control and scalar
processing. Also, software for EnLight is developed using three main tools: Matlab APL bit
exact simulator, APL Studio bit exact and cycle exact simulator, and APL Studio Emulator.

 First programmable optical processor.

 Combines optics, silicon, communications, and tools in standard board.

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6.2 HP Lab's Experimental Optical Processor

Hewlett Packard Labs has developed an optical processor that could tackle a class of
computational problems not easily solved by conventional digital chips. The processor, which
was developed in conjunction with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s
Mesodynamic Architectures program, houses 1,052 optical components laid down on a
silicon-based substrate.

According to a report in IEEE Spectrum, the chip design implements an Ising

machine, which can take on the computational behaviour of magnetic material. In a real
magnet, atoms can “spin” up or down to represent different states. In the optical approach,
magnetic spin is simulated using a combination of light beams, wave guides, interferometers,
and heater wires – all integrated on-chip. The spins in HPE’s optical implementation are
represented by “two phases of light that are 180 degrees out of phase of each other.”

An Ising machine is good at solving combinatorial optimization problems, like the

traveling salesman problem, which can be computed by tuning the optical elements until an
optimal low-energy configuration is reached. Such computation is highly efficient in terms of
both speed and power usage. With the winding down of Moore’s Law for conventional
digital designs, such Ising machines promise a new avenue for building more powerful
computers. The HP Labs team is already looking at future designs to scale up the number of
spins.

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6.3 Optalysys optical processing powers convolutional neural network

Optalysys, the UK-based developer of an optical computing platform using low-

power laser light to carry out certain processor-intensive mathematical functions, has
announced the first implementation of a convolutional neural network (CNN) using its
technology.
CNNs, a focus of interest for the kind of machine learning methods referred to as deep
learning, are expected to be crucial elements in applications such as the control of
autonomous vehicles and medical image analysis.

"Optalysys has for the first time applied optical processing to the computationally
demanding area of CNNs with initial accuracy rates of over 70 percent," said Optalysys CEO
Nick New. "Through our scalable optical approach, we are developing models that will offer
whole new levels of capability, not only cloud-based but also opening up the potential of
CNNs to mobile systems."

The company's technology, developed from its origins at University of Cambridge

spin-out Cambridge Correlators, uses optical components to perform a mathematical function
on an input light signal. This approach can allow Fourier transforms (FT) to be calculated
more rapidly than conventional electronic computation can achieve, with inherent potential to
carry out multiple computations in parallel and scale-up the capacity of the system.

The Optalysys architecture employs spatial light modulators (SLMs) to manipulate

the optical signal, and the company has been able to exploit the high-performance
components now being developed by the displays industry for high-resolution micro-
displays. SLMs designed for those applications offered the company a solution to the
challenge of inputting data into its platform and increasing the power of the system, although
SLMs developed specifically for optical computation may well become a feature of the
system in the future.

"Our collaboration with the Genome Analysis Centre, now the Earlham Institute, to
develop a new Genetic Search System (GENESYS) recently concluded and surpassed
expectations, and has led to a co-processor product that is now in beta test with selected
genetics institutes and universities," Nick New told Optics.org.

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7.ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMPUTING

Higher performance: Although optical computers are still in their early stages and cannot
yet be compared to conventional computers, it still is safe to say that they have a higher
processing speed. There are two reason for this. First, metallic wires reduce the transmission
speed. Second, nothing is faster than the speed of light.

Less consumption: Modern day computers consume a lot of energy. Computers require over
80 watts in idle state, 120 watts during normal use and 250 in performance mode and all of
this energy is not used efficiently.

Less heat is released: As previously mentioned, optical computers function with the use of
lasers. These do not radiate much heat, depending on the application. Moreover, compared to
conventional computers, optical computers do not require a processor airing therefore, they
could be smaller and do not need free space for airing. As a consequence, the probability of a
fire occurring due to overheating are significantly reduced.

Less noise: Conventional computers often produce a lot of noise due to the rotating fan.
Because optical computers do not have fans for airing, the noise factor is also reduced
significantly.

More flexibility in layout: Conventional computers are usually built in the form of a
rectangular box (or in the form of a laptop). The reason for this is the speed of the electric
connections. "Using optical components the distance of communication does not matter.
Once the signal is in an optical fiber it does not matter whether the signal runs 1 meter or
1000 meters. Still the data rate is very high and there is no crosstalk.

Reduced loss in communication: Optical computers use optical wires to transmit data.
These have a higher bandwidth therefore which leads to higher performance.

DISADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMPUTING

Although there are many positive aspects about optical computers, there are also some
disadvantages.

Expensive Components: Parts for conventional computers are produced in plants whose
only job is to manufacture these parts therefore, the price is low mainly do to mass
production. Optical components on the other hand there are not any manufacturers the
specialize in the production of optical components and as a result, the price is high.

Components are not the "right size": In contrast with conventional computer parts, optical
components are of larger magnitude. Researchers have not yet been able to create optical
components small enough to assemble a motherboard.

Manufacturing Problems: For the computer to work properly, the miniaturized components
need to be manufactured exactly. As aforementioned, this has not yet been achieved. Even
the slightest of deviations can cause the light beams (lasers) to divert resulting in massive
problems. Therefore, it can be concluded that the production process is quite costly.
.

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8.THE FUTURE

So far so good, but there is a caveat: Even though optics are superior to electronics for
communication, they are not very suitable for actually carrying out calculations. At least,
when we think binary—in ones and zeroes. Here the human brain may hold a solution. We
do not think in a binary way. Our brain is not digital, but analogue, and it makes calculations
all the time.

Computer engineers are now realising the potential of such analogues, or brain-like,
computing, and have created a new field of neuromorphic computing, where they try to
mimic how the human brain works using electronic chips. And in turns out that optics are an
excellent choice for this new brain-like way of computing.

In fact, it has already been shown that such chips can do some basic speech
recognition. And two start-ups in the US, Lightelligence and Lightmatter, have now taken up
the challenge to realise such optical chips for artificial intelligence.

Optical chips are still some way behind electronic chips, but we're already seeing the
results and this research could lead to a complete revolution in computer power. Maybe in
five years from now we will see the first optical co-processors in supercomputers. These will
be used for very specific tasks, such as the discovery of new pharmaceutical drugs.

But who knows what will follow after that? In ten years these chips might be used to
detect and recognise objects in self-driving cars and autonomous drones. And when you are
talking to Apple's Siri or Amazon's Echo, by then you might actually be speaking to an
optical computer.

While the 20th century was the age of the electron, the 21st century is the age of the
photon – of light. And the future shines bright.

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9.CONCLUSIONS

The history of optical computing reveals an extraordinary scientific adventure. It

started with the processing power of coherent light and particularly its Fourier transform
capability. The history shows that considerable efforts were dedicated to the construction of
optical processors that could process a large amount of data in considerable amount of time.
Today, Optics is very
successful in information systems such as communications and memories com- pared to its
relative failure in computing.

All the research results in optical computing contribute strongly to the development
of new research topics such as biphotonic, nanophononics, optofluidics, and femto- second
nonlinear optic s. But, the dream of an all optical computer overcoming the digital computer
never became reality, and optical correlators for pattern recognition have almost disappeared.
The speed of the optical processor was always limited by the speed of the input and output
devices. Digital computer have progressed very rapidly, the Moore’s law is still valid, multi-
core processors are more powerful, and it is clear that digital computer are easier to use and
offers more flexibility. Digital computers have progressed faster than optical processors.
Optical computing is mostly analogue when electronic computing is digital. Due to the lack
of appropriate optical components digital optical computers were not able to compete with
the electronic. The solution to this is to associate optics and electronics and to use optics only
when it can bring something that electronics cannot do. The potential of optics for parallel
real time processing remains and the future will tell if optical computing will be back, for
example, by using nanotechnologies.

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10.REFERENCES

[1] K. Preston, Coherent Optical Computers, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, USA,
1972

[2] S. H. Lee, Optical Information Processing Fundamentals, Springer, Berlin,

Germany, 1981.

[3] H. H. Arsenault, T. Szoplik, and B. Macukow, Optical Processing and Computing,

Academic Press, SanDiego, Calif, USA, 1989.

[4] J. Shamir, Optical Systems and Processes, SPIE Press, Bellingham, Wash, USA,
1999.

[5] H. J. Caulfield, “Perspectives in optical computing,” Computer, vol. 31, no. 2, pp.
22–25, 1998.

[6] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5218639

[7] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1672821

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