Design of optically coupled three dimensional common memory for parallel processor system

The optically coupled three-dimensional common memory (3D-OCC memory) is a newly proposed intelligent memory for high-speed parallel processing in computation. The 3D-OCC memory is able to transfer a large block of data with very high speed by means of optical coupling in the vertical direction; also, stored data in the common memory can be accessed by many processors without collision. The authors describe the design methodology of a 3D-OCC memory with a capacity of 4 kb × 1 b × 4 layers based on 2-μm CMOS technology. This memory has been designed on the basis of the circuit simulation by using the equivalent circuit model for the optical coupling operation.