The advent of optical technology that can feasibly support extremely high bandwidth chip-to-chip communication raises a host of architectural questions in the design of digital systems. Terabit per second (and higher) bandwidths have not been previously available at the chip level. In this thesis, we examine the use of this technology in two different scenarios, viz., as the interconnection network in a multiprocessor system and as a switch fabric in network routers. Specifically, we examine the performance gains associated with utilizing the bandwidth reconfiguration capabilities of a system based on this technology
