Optics And Symbolic Computing
John A. Neff · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1986
A new class of computer architectures is emerging, driven mostly by the requirements of symbolic computing (artificial intelligence). They may be succinctly described as fine-grained, tightly-coupled multiprocessor systems. This means that the architectures are composed of a large number of relatively noncomplex processors that are coupled in such a manner that any given processor has direct communication with many other processors. Such machines are more readily adaptable to the data element structures associated with symbolic computing than are the sequential machines available today. It is important that the optical processing/computing community begin to investigate the role of optics in fine-grained, tightly-coupled multiprocessor systems.