The field programmable photonic gate array (FPPGA) is an integrated photonic device/subsystem that operates similarly to a field programmable gate array in electronics. It is a set of programmable photonics analogue blocks (PPABs) and of reconfigurable photonic interconnects (RPIs) implemented over a photonic chip. The PPABs provide the building blocks for implementing basic optical analogue operations (reconfigurable/independent power splitting and phase shifting). Broadly they enable reconfigurable processing just like configurable logic elements (CLE) or programmable logic blocks (PLBs) carry digital operations in electronic FPGAs or configurable analogue blocks (CABs) carry analogue operations in electronic field programmable analogue arrays (FPAAs). Reconfigurable interconnections between PPABs are provided by the RPIs. This chapter presents basic principles of integrated FPPGAs. It describes their main building blocks and discusses alternatives for their high-level layouts, design flow, technology mapping and physical implementation. Finally, it shows that waveguide meshes lead naturally to a compact solution.
A Reconfigurable Processing Unit for Digital Circuit Testing using Built-In Self-Test Techniques
