Circuit-Switched Memory Access in Photonic Interconnection Networks for High-Performance Embedded Computing

High-performance embedded systems, such as those found in aerial surveillance platforms and handheld devices used by the military, are of key importance. These systems are characterized by stringent power budgets and the need for extremely fast, streaming access to memory. While general-purpose processors offer a customizable solution, they typically do not meet the power and performance requirements for the systems in question. For this reason, specialized chip multiprocessors (CMPs) are used.