OPTICAL

COMPUTING

BY
SOUJANYA
KEERTHI
INTRODUCTION
●With the growth of computing technology the need of high
performance computers has significantly increased.
●Optical computing was a hot research area in 1980’s.

●Using light, instead of electric power, for performing

computations.
● This choice is motivated by several features that light has:

•It is very fast.

•It can be easily manipulated
•It is very well suited for parallelization.
Why we Use Optics for Computing?
What’s wrong with
electronics?
●Miniaturisation can lead to
cross talk
●Speed of electrons in matter
●Solid medium limits both
speed and magnitude
●Build up to heat
●30 cm length of wire produces
~ 1 ns delay
●Low bandwidth
interconnections
What’s right with Optics?
●Light doesn’t suffer from the
electronic time response
●No need for insulators
●Optical communication:
●Multiplexing and different
wavelengths with no
interference
●Low signal loss, large
bandwidth.
●Compact, lightweight,
inexpensive
What is Optical Computing?
●Computing with Light not Electricity
●Can be:

●Entire optical computers

●Optical/electronic hybrids

●Huge multidisciplinary research area

●Maths, Physics, Materials Science,

Computer Science, Electronic engineering etc.

OPTICAL COMPUTER

●Uses the PHOTONS in visible light or infrared ( IR ) beams,

rather than electric current, to perform digital computations.
OPTICAL COMPUTER

●Bright flashes of laser light can be sent hundreds of miles

along fine strands of specially made glass or plastic called
OPTICAL FIBERS.
OPTICAL COMPUTER

Instead of transistors, such a computer will have

●

TRANSPHASORS.
OPTICAL COMPUTER

●Beams of light can crisscross and overlap without

becoming mixed up.
OPTICAL COMPUTER

●The arrangement of connections and switches would not

have to be flat, as in an electronic computer. It could be
placed in any direction in space, allowing totally new
designs in information processing.
POTENTIAL OF OPTICAL COMPUTING
● A ‘primitive’ Optical chip
8
●100,000,000 gates (10 )
-9
●Nanosecond switching speeds (10 )
17
●Capable of performing 10 bit operations per second
●Optical computers could be much faster

●Data traffic will get a non-electronic solution,

●Worldwide data traffic growing by 100% each year

●Terabit speeds are required – optical can provide

figure for Nano second All optical AND –logic gate
An Optical Chip
 MERITS
●Optical storage will provide an extremely optimized way to
store data.
●Super fast searches through databases.
●No short circuits, light beam can cross each other without
interfering with each other’s data.
●Higher performance
●Higher parallelism
●Less heat is released
●Less noise
●More Flexible in layout
●Less loss in communication
●Massive improvements in highly parallel computation such as
image processing
●Low manufacturing costs
●100,000 times faster calculations
Progress in Optical Computing
●Recent optical devices created:
●Optical logic gates

●Optical interconnections

● optical memory

● optical switches

●Switching device performance

-15
●Speeds of 10 seconds
●Power requirements one millionth of a watt
DRAWBACKS
●Materials require much high power
●Optical computing using a coherent source is simple to

compute and understand, but it has many drawbacks like

any imperfections or dust on the optical components will
create unwanted interference pattern due to scattering
effects.
●Optical components and their production is still expensive

●New expensive high-tech factories have to be built

FUTURE TRENDS
●The Ministry of Information Technology has initiated a
photonic development program.
●Under this program some funded projects are continuing

in fiber optic high-speed network systems.

● Research is going on for developing

new laser diodes

photo detectors
nonlinear material studies for faster switches.
Conclusion
●Two directions of development:
●Same architecture with optical components (realistic)

●All functions in optical mode (ambitious)

●Many new possibilities

●High performance computing, high speed communications,

parallel algorithms
Thank you