OptiShare: A Dynamic Channel Sharing Scheme for Power Efficient On-chip Optical Architectures

In this paper we explore a new class of optical networks that try to reduce static power using laser modulation techniques as well as by sharing optical channels. In our proposed scheme, OptiShare, a station can only source power from a segmented tree based power waveguide only if it has one or multiple tokens. A station arbitrates for a token before sending a message, and then releases it. At the end of an epoch, we aggregate usage information from across the network and predict the number of units of power (1 unit = 1 token) that should be supplied in the next epoch. Such an approach helps us conserve static power, and share optical power equitably across stations. OptiShare is 14% faster than a traditional network that does not share waveguides, and consumes 20-30X less energy than systems that do not use laser modulation.