Design of a compact neural network based on an optical broadcast architecture

A novel, compact optoelectronic hardware neural network ar- chitecture based on an optical broadcast scheme is proposed and dem- onstrated. The basic cell in the system is composed of electronic neu- rons that share the same time-distributed, optical broadcast input. The system combines the computational strengths of electronics and the communication strengths of optics, and employs a modular reconfig- urable architecture that is potentially scalable to a very large number of neurons while maintaining compactness. These characteristics are real- ized in an architecture that combines the integration of the processing elements in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) tech- nology with the construction of efficient optical interconnection elements with focusing properties based on multiplexed volume holograms. © 2005 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. (DOI: 10.1117/1.1902994) Subject terms: optical neural networks; complementary metal-oxide semiconduc- tor sensor arrays; electronic processing; optical interconnects; volume holograms.