ABSTRACT

Photonic wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) weight banks are the core device associated with networking in broadcast-and-weight systems. Controlling WDM signals with tunable spectral filters enables multicast routing in optical networks; at the same time, configurable weighted addition is the crucial function describing interconnection and fan-in operations in neural networks. Photonic weight bank device performance is therefore closely tied to broadcast-and-weight system bandwidth, scalability, and reconfigurability.