Copyright (c) 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. A reconfigurable MIMD architecture based on free-space optical interconnection is presented. A matrix-addressed spatial light modulator (SLMr is used as an optical switch, through which different processors communicate. Petri nets are used to specify connections between processors in an application. These are translated to the control instructions for the SLM for actual configuring. Special arithmetic Petri net models are also used for specifying functions to be performed by the processors. Configuration was demonstrated for two architectures: dataflow and mesh. Our aim is to combine the desirable properties of optics and Petri nets, and study their viability for implementing massively parallel processing (MPPr systems of the future.
['Tut San Guan', 'T. Alukaidey', 'Silvano P. V. Barros']
An MPP reconfigurable architecture using free-space optical interconnects and Petri net configuring