Spatial-Wavelength Multiplexing Reliable Photonic Integrated General-Purpose Analog Computing System

TL;DR

This paper introduces a silicon photonic-based general-purpose analog computing system that uses wavelength multiplexing and error correction to enable reliable, high-capacity optical computations for various applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel photonic hardware framework with multi-channel and wavelength multiplexing capabilities for reliable, high-speed analog computing.

Findings

Successfully solves ordinary differential equations using the system

Achieves up to 227 TOPS/W energy efficiency

Demonstrates applications in communications, microwave photonics, and image processing

Abstract

In the "post-Moore era", the growing challenges in traditional computing have driven renewed interest in analog computing, leading to various proposals for the development of general-purpose analog computing (GPAC) systems. In this work, we present a GPAC prototype featuring a silicon photonic chip designed for fully optical analog computation. This system leverages on-chip multi-channel architectures to enable parallel processing and utilizes wavelength-division multiplexing to significantly enhance computational capacity. In addition, we have developed an error-correction algorithm to monitor processing operations in real time, ensuring the reliability of computational results. Experimentally, we demonstrate the system's capability to solve ordinary differential equations and its applications in communications, microwave photonics, and image processing. The chip's energy efficiency is evaluated to reach up to 227 tera-operations per second per watt. Through this research, we provide a novel hardware framework and innovative directions for analog photonic computing.