OPTICAL CELLULAR AUTOMATON COMPUTER FOR MASSIVELY PARALLEL SYMBOLIC PROCESSING

STRATEGIC DEFENSE COMPUTING NEEDS CALL FOR MASSIVELY PARALLEL DATA PROCESSING FOR BATTLE MANAGEMENT, AND THE ABILITY TO GO BEYOND NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS TO DIRECT SYMBOLIC PROCESSING. A NEW APPROACH TO ALL-OPTICAL COMPUTING IS BEING STUDIED BASED ON A CELLULAR AUTOMATON ARCHITECTURE NEVER BEFORE DEMONSTRATED IN AN ALL-OPTICAL CONTEXT. TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE, THE NONLINEAR TRIPLE PROCESSOR DEVICEIS BEING EXTENDED TO INTRODUCE FULL THREE-PORT ADDRESSING. THE RESULTING GENERIC COMPUTING DEVICE, CONSISTING IN ITS ENTIRETY OF A SINGLE CRYSTAL OR FILM OF THIRD-ORDER NONLINEAR MATERIAL, COULD BE CASCADED TO IMPLEMENT NUMERICAL, SYMBOLIC OR IMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS. SPECIFIC DESIGNS ARE BEING DEVELOPED FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A BASIC 2D CELLULAR AUTOMATON OFTEN MODELED ON DIGITAL COMPUTERS. THE OPTICAL COMPUTING SYSTEM COMBINES HOLOGRAPHIC PRINCIPLES WITH NONLINEAR OPTICS IN A UNIFIED STRATEGY OF MATERIALS, DEVICE AND ARCHITECTURE DEVELOPMENT. PHOTOREFRACTIVE CRYSTALS WILL BETHE BASIS FOR FIRST STAGE PROOF-OF-CONCEPT STUDIES. LATER IMPLEMENTATION IN ORGANIC FILMS COULD LEAD TO 1,000 X 1,000 PIXEL SYMBOLIC PROCESSING ON PICOSECOND TIME SCALES. OTHER NOVEL APPLICATIONS OF THE EXTENDED TRIPLE PROCESSOR CONCEPTS COULD BE FIBER OPTIC CROSSBAR SWITCHING, ROBUST PATTERN RECOGNITION, AND OTHER FUNCTIONS REQUIRED BY STRATEGIC DEFENSE.