Lower bounds on the computational efficiency of optical computing systems

Abstract

A general model for determining the computational efficiency of optical computing systems, termed the VLSIO model, is described. It is a 3-D generalization of the wire model of a 2-D VLSI with optical beams (via Gabor’s theorem) replacing the wires as communication channels. Lower bounds (in terms of simultaneous volume and time) on the computational resources of the VLSIO are obtained for computing various problems such as matrix multiplication.