| A high-speed parallel bus technology for grid computing and the clustering of supercomputers at distances of up to 50 kilometers is required to exploit parallelism for solution of computationally challenging numerical simulations. Based on the requirements for low intra-byte (or intra data word) time-skew, high bandwidth, and relatively low latency, a time skew free single optical fiber interconnect is desired. This dissertation presents a feasibility study of such a ‘pulse shepherded’ wavelength division multiplexed link by analyzing correctable time skew and optical noise multiplication in the presence of amplified spontaneous emission and optical fiber nonlinearities. Bit error rate performance as a function of fiber chromatic dispersion and shepherd pulse peak power show that the range of chromatic dispersion which can be accommodated using this technique is roughly −0.05 to +0.05 ps/(nm-km) using a shepherd pulse with peak power of roughly 20 to 30 milliwatts in a dispersion flattened step index optical fiber with attenuation of 0.2 dB/km, effective area of 55 μm2, and nonlinear coefficient n2 of 3.2 × 10−20 m 2/W.; It is also shown that the pulse shepherding technique when applied to ultra long haul optical communications systems limited by Gordon-Haus timing jitter extends the system length. Simulation results suggest that the total system length can be increased by a factor of roughly 2.2. |
