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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Random-access stimulated-echo optical cache memory

Ravinder Kachru, Yu Bai, Xiao A. Shen, David L. Huestis

Published Apr 1, 1992• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe a new approach to develop a high-speed, high-density random access cache memory. This new technique is based on a novel approach using, in essence, a hybrid of the time domain stimulated echo (SE) concept and the frequency domain scheme. It has been demonstrated that the rare-earth doped crystals, can at low temperatures store large amounts of information for up to 24 hours using SE. The basic approach we have developed is the partitioning of the absorption frequency domain into smaller bins, so that each frequency bin stores a smaller portion of information independently. The bins are distinguishable by their different absorption frequencies and they are accessed by changing the laser frequency (color). However, information is still stored and retrieved using the time-domain pulse sequency used in SE. Specifically, with the laser frequency set at the particular absorption of a frequency bin, the laser is externally modulated by an acousto-optic modulator to produce amplitude modulated pulses representing the digital data, the write pulse, and the read pulse, during the write and retrieve operation, respectively. The advantages of this approach are that memory can be stored in space, time, and frequency domain, allowing us to tailor a flexible memory architecture to match those of the computational processor.

DOI
10.1117/12.58504

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We describe a new approach to develop a high-speed, high-density random access cache memory. This new technique is based on a novel approach using, in essence, a hybrid of the time domain stimulated echo (SE) concept and the frequency domain scheme. It has been demonstrated that the rare-earth doped crystals, can at low temperatures store large amounts of information for up to 24 hours using SE. The basic approach we have developed is the partitioning of the absorption frequency domain into smaller bins, so that each frequency bin stores a smaller portion of information independently. The bins are distinguishable by their different absorption frequencies and they are accessed by changing the laser frequency (color). However, information is still stored and retrieved using the time-domain pulse sequency used in SE. Specifically, with the laser frequency set at the particular absorption of a frequency bin, the laser is externally modulated by an acousto-optic modulator to produce amplitude modulated pulses representing the digital data, the write pulse, and the read pulse, during the write and retrieve operation, respectively. The advantages of this approach are that memory can be stored in space, time, and frequency domain, allowing us to tailor a flexible memory architecture to match those of the computational processor.
We describe the first experiments to validate the concept of a high-speed, high-density random access memory. This technique is based on a hybrid of the time-domain stimulated echo and the frequency domain scheme. The basic approach we have developed is the partitioning of the absorption frequency domain into smaller bins, so that each frequency bin stores a smaller portion of information independently. The advantage of the approach is the flexibility it offers in tailoring the memory system to match the computational processor. We have demonstrated storage and retrieval of data for long time in frequency bins separated by 750 MHz. We have achieved data rates of 40 MHz.
We describe the first experiments to validate the concept of a high-speed, high-density random access memory. This technique is based on a hybrid of the time-domain stimulated echo and the frequency domain scheme. The basic approach we have developed is the partitioning of the absorption frequency domain into smaller bins, so that each frequency bin stores a smaller portion of information independently. The advantage of the approach is the flexibility it offers in tailoring the memory system to match the computational processor. We have demonstrated storage and retrieval of data for long time in frequency bins separated by 750 MHz. We have achieved data rates of 40 MHz.© (1993) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Optical data storage has been interested in several decades because of the potential of fast access time and high-density storage. Recently volume holographic data storage technique has drawn much interest as new materials and improved techniques have developed.1 However, the large of hologram storage is restricted by low diffraction efficiency and mainly focused to read only memory because of the material's characteristic difficult to rewrite in short time interval. Another optical memory technique (photon echo optical memory)2 based on time-domain has developed since 1980's and made big progress for the area of real time image processing and dynamic random access memory. In this technique, data pulses interfere with timely separated write pulse (reference), and their interference pattern is written as population gratings. A read pulse (reference) retrieves each data pulse information as a four-wave mixing process. The write and read pulse separations are restricted by phase and population decay times of the material, respectively, and storage density is determined by the ratio of inhomogeneous to homogeneous linewidths. Even though photon echo technique has advantages of fast access time (≥ ns) and high-density (≥ Mbits/laser spot), its operating temperature is kept extremely low around liquid helium temperature. This is because that homogeneous decay time rapidly shortens as temperature increases due to phonon interactions, i.e., the ratio of inhomogeneous to homogeneous decay rates is ~ 1 at liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K) in a rare-earth doped solid, so that restricts its applications.
Our goal is to quantitatively evaluate the concept of time-domain optical memory (TDOM) based on the stimulated photon echo technique and to prepare for the development of a working prototype. Earlier feasibility studies at SRI International showed that TDOM can store not only digital data in the form a series of on-off laser pulses but also two-dimensional (2-D) images with the same read/write speed. Despite work at SRI and elsewhere, until now the use of TDOM for 2-D images has not been carefully examined and the quality of echo images and their inherent spatial resolution have not been explored. These issues have an important bearing on TDOM as a high-speed, high-density storage device. This year, we focused on using the stimulated echo technique for 2-D image storage and image processing. Specific tasks included incorporating a gated intensified charge-coupled device (CCD) camera system for detecting echo images, digitally recording the echo images, and optimizing the optical system. We have also extended the earlier feasibility study on stimulated-echo-based, 2- D image storage and image processing and demonstrated storage and retrieval of the high-quality, high-resolution echo images. In addition, we demonstrated for the first time that nanosecond pattern recognition can be achieved using the stimulated echo approach. (Author)
We are developing a high density, high speed optical memory, using rare-earth doped hole- burning materials. These materials are theoretically capable of achieving storage densities of 1000 Gigabits/cm3 at input/output (I/O) rates of several gigabits/sec. One remarkable attribute of this storage concept is that both the temporal and spatial information encoded on a laser beam can be stored. Because both the temporal and spatial information can be stored, digital data can be recorded serially as a data or packet stream as well as holographically using the page format. During the past year we have achieved a breakthrough in demonstrating random access holographic data storage at high frame rates. Five hundred holograms were stored and retrieved with very good fidelity at 30 Hz (video rate). Each holographic image with 512 multiplied by 488 pixels could be randomly accessed during the storage and retrieval process. This frame rate is the highest demonstrated frame rate for any optical technique. This breakthrough was achieved through the invention of a memory architecture that allows multiple holographic frames to be stored without any mechanical beam scanning. In this new architecture multiplexing of 500 holograms was achieved by stepping the laser frequency over a range covered by high speed acousto-optic modulators (AOM).