Spatial-Wavelength Multiplexing Error-Controlled Photonic Analog Computing System

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Analog Computing
• Optical Computing

Background:

• The "post-Moore era" necessitates new computing paradigms beyond traditional digital methods.
• Photonic analog computing offers a solution to bottlenecks in conventional accelerators, ideal for high-speed signal processing and 5G/6G RF systems.
• Current photonic analog computing frameworks lack the flexibility for diverse applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel silicon photonic chip for flexible, fully optical analog computation.
• To enhance computational capabilities and address limitations in existing photonic analog computing systems.

Main Methods:

• A multichannel architecture enabling spatial multiplexing.
• A parallel array of four reconfigurable microring resonators for wavelength division multiplexed differentiation computing.
• An FPGA-based error correction algorithm for real-time monitoring and fidelity assurance.

Main Results:

• Experimental demonstration of solving ordinary differential equations.
• Successful applications in signal generation, coherent fiber communications, microwave photonics, and image feature detection.
• Theoretical on-chip processing capacity of a single unit reaching 2.725 tera operations per second across the C-band.

Conclusions:

• The proposed silicon photonic chip offers a novel hardware framework for flexible photonic analog computing.
• This work provides innovative directions for advancing optical analog computation.
• The system demonstrates high processing capacity and broad applicability in various fields.