Using an Optical Bus in a Distributed Memory Multicomputer

Abstract

This research examines the use of an optical bus in a distributed memory multicomputer. We formulate a simple multicomputer model in order to concentrate on the performance of the optical bus from a Computer Architecture viewpoint. In this report we consider the optical bus to be a Small Local Area Network (S-LAN) and apply two classical LAN medium access protocols, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). From our standard discrete-event simulation experiments we principally conclude that CSMA/CD does not outperform TDMA as much as might be expected from classical analyses. We also conclude that TDMA allows a large number of nodes to be connected to the optical bus for our model.