Patent ID: 8369710

Claim:
A multi-processor system comprising: a plurality of processing devices; and a plurality of optical network interfaces electrically coupled to the plurality of processing devices, wherein at least one of the plurality of optical network interfaces includes: an optical component having: an optical interface adapted to connect to an optical device capable of transmitting and receiving optical signals; a detector array, coupled to the optical interface, configured to translate a first set of optical signals received from the optical interface to corresponding differential electrical signals in the form of a first serial data stream; and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) array, coupled to the optical interface, configured to translate a second serial data stream of electrical signals to a corresponding second set of optical signals to be transmitted to the optical interface; and an electrical component having: a decoder array, coupled to the detector array, configured to convert the first serial data stream to a corresponding first set of parallel data; a receive router coupled to the decoder array; a plurality of receive buffers, coupled to the receive router, wherein the receive router directs the first set of parallel data to at least one of the receive buffers; an electrical interface adapted to connect to at least one of the plurality of processing devices capable of transmitting and receiving electrical signals, wherein the electrical interface is configured to receive the first set of parallel data from the at least one of the receive buffers and to send the first set of parallel data to at least one of the plurality of processing devices; a plurality of send buffers, configured to receive a second set of parallel data from the electrical interface in response to the electrical interface receiving the second set of parallel data from at least one of the plurality of processing devices; a send router, coupled to the plurality of send buffers; and an encoder array, coupled to the VCSEL array, configured to convert the second set of parallel data to the second serial data stream and to send the second serial data stream to the VCSEL array as a differential electrical signal, wherein the send router is configured to direct the second set of parallel data to at least one encoder of the encoder array.