NTT Labs Kahaner Report

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From:
 Dr. David K. Kahaner
 US Office of Naval Research Asia
 (From outside US):  23-17, 7-chome, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan
 (From within  US):  Unit 45002, APO AP 96337-0007
  Tel: +81 3 3401-8924, Fax: +81 3 3403-9670
  Email: kahaner () cs titech ac jp
Re: NTT Labs
11/02/93 (MM/DD/YY)
This file is named "ntt-labs.993"


ABSTRACT. Some research activities at NTT's Yokosuka Lab and overview of
corporate R&D organization. Also a discussion of a free-space optical
interconnection scheme for parallel computers, and an improvement in
traditional wavelength division multiplexing of optical networks.


I have written about NTT research several times, see for example, Sep 8
1993 "isr.93", Feb 23 1993 "ntt-rev.93", Sep 19 1993 "ntt-r-d.993". I
recently made a visit to the company's Yokosuka R&D Center to look at
several of the research projects myself and get a general overview of
the research organization. My host was


     Dr Mitsuru Miyauchi
     Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor
     Network Integration Laboratory
     NTT Telecommunication Networks Lab
     1-2356, Taki, Yokosuka-shi
     Kanagawa-ken 238-03 Japan
      Tel: +81 468-59-3180; Fax: +81 468-59-2546
      Email: MIYAUCHI () NTTMHS NTT JP


By now, readers should be aware that NTT is the world's largest
corporation with over 250,000 employees, providing telephone, telegraph,
leased circuit, pager, videotex, fax, video conferencing, digital data
exchange and related services. NTT is also associated with a variety of
related business in the telecommunications industry. NTT also wholly
owns NTT Data, which is Japan's largest systems integrator. Thus, it
should be obvious that this report can only touch on a few research
activities. I expect to examine other projects during the coming year.


NTT has put heavy emphasis on merging computing, networking, and
communications technologies -- this concept lies at the heart of their
VI&P corporate logo, "Visual, Intelligent and Personal", and major
research efforts are devoted toward supporting that activity. At the
same time the R&D department is explicitly long term oriented. VI&P has
a total time frame of 25 years (15 years to develop the concept and 10
years to make it readily available). However, R&D is also focused into
the specialized areas that the company feels will be needed, and an
emphasis is made to translate this into practical technologies. While
NTT's net of  disciplines is wide, the main emphasis is on optical and
advanced electric wave, knowledge processing, optoelectronic, and
nanoelectronic technologies.


Long term targets are as follows.


  High-speed broadband communications using ATM switching and lightwave
    technologies.
  Intelligent communications using computerized knowledge processing.
  Personal communications services using ultra-small terminals and network
    ID searcher technologies.


R&D for near term applications are as follows.


  Evolution from narrow band ISDN (N-ISDN) to broadband ISDN (B-ISDN).
  Ramp-up to intelligent and personal communications services.
  Development of advanced communications services and integrated
    operations systems.




NTT maintains eight research institutes, including four R&D Centers
(Musashino, Atsugi, Yokosuka. Ibaragi) of which the largest is at
Yokosuka, about one hour south of Tokyo. The Centers support 13 separate
labs. The NTT R&D organization has a total budget of 280B Yen, supporting
about 8,500 people. The Labs and Centers have a budget of about 170B Yen
and about 3,000 researchers.


  Telecommunications Networks Lab
    Architecture definition of communications networks and system
     integration for network optimization.


  Network Information Systems Lab
    Computer systems for information processing and access applications.


  Human Interface Lab
    Economical systems offering easy, more natural, more efficient operation.


  Communication Switching Lab
    Switching systems for economical, high performance networks.


  Transmission Systems Lab
    Transmission systems and wired telecommunications networks.


  Radio Communication Systems Lab


  Software Lab
    Software development and software quality control.


  LSI Lab
    Custom LSI for electronic and communications system applications.


  Opto-electronics Lab
    Optical circuits and parts for electronic and optical communications
     systems.


  Interdisciplinary Research Lab
    R&D and application of file recording systems, general purpose
     devices, materials, and parts.


  Basic Research Lab


  Communication Science Lab
    Fundamentals of communication science, such as AI, data security, and
     parallel processing.


Within the R&D organizations currently about 5% of employees have PhD
while almost 60% have Masters. However about 10% of NTT R&D employees
receive PhD during their employment.


I went to the Yokosuka Lab, which has a staff of around 1,300
researchers to visit Dr Miyauchi and see some of the ISDN related
research. These all have a common communications theme. Several of
interest to me are mentioned below.


A 2D LCD video display (15 inch) with full 640x480 resolution. This uses
a lenticular lens, which is typical, developed by NTT, along with an
infrared sensor that can detect head movements to the right or left.
This helps eliminate the need to keep a fixed position when using 3D
displays without special glasses. Readers should note that similar work
is also in progress at the ATR Labs in the Kansai region. (ATR Labs are
heavily staffed by researchers from NTT on a rotation basis, see for
example the report, "al.93", 20 Oct 1993.) Other research into glassless
3D systems may be found at NHK (television), see "nhk-oh.93", 10 June 1993.
I was told that NTT's system will become a product next year (1994).


A high speed videotex system that uses B-ISDN (ATM 156Mb/s) to transfer
and display HDTV color still pictures and sound from a central
multimedia database within 2 seconds, using a multilayered protocol
based on OSI standards, and high speed reading  from multiple disks by
parallel access (5.6GB 8 mag disks) that can contain 930 non-compressed
HDTV color still pictures. Attached to the HDTV monitor is a terminal
control unit with 2K by 2K  pixel frame memory, 8MB sound memory, and
8-bit/pixel for each of RBG. The database allows tree searching, direct
searching, browsing and repeat retrieval. Applications are to electronic
museums, catalogs, medical libraries, etc.


A multimedia teleconferencing system using B-ISDN for individual users
with X window terminals.  The idea would be to remove the need for uses
to go to a special teleconferencing site. Up to 20 difference sites can
be conferenced and allows up to 11 windows with full-motion video. Two
separate video sources are allowed per terminal and there is the option
for an attached 300dpi scanner.


A high speed 2.4Gb/s optical line connects the Yokosuka Center with the
Musashino Center about 100km away. I was shown examples of computational
displays of weather maps that were generated at Musashino and displayed
at Yokosuka, with communication using ATM between NTT's Cray-2 and
Convex computers at about T3 equivalent speeds of 45Mb/s. In their
experimental system testing high speed computer communication they are
getting a transmission rate of 4MB/s, or 32Mb/s using TCP/IP, about 70%
of the ATM performance.  Color images 512x512, equivalent to about 1MB,
these take about 2 mu-sec computer to computer. Work is going on to
use HIPPI (800MB/s) connections in the near future.


Several kilometers away from the lab NTT has built a house and linked it
with optical fiber that can multiplex-transmit data at speeds of several
Mbps up to several hundred Mbps on a single optical fiber. The house is
an advanced test bed for potential products and services that might
become available when ISDN become widely used. In each room there are
one or more systems running. These include interactive piano teacher,
multi channel high definition TV (called HiVision in Japan), super high
definition TV (SHD, 2K by 2K resolution, clear enough to read a full
size newspaper digitized onto the screen), etc. I was told that SHD
provides sufficient resolution for displaying medical images such as
X-ray images, although ordinary HDTV does not.  The home is really a
showcase of ideas and is much larger than typical Japanese houses,
except perhaps for the very wealthy.  Nevertheless, some of these
services may become future consumer products available to everyone.


I also had the opportunity to meet


    Dr Takao Matsumoto
    Group Leader, Optical Signal Processing Research Group
    Lightwave Communications Lab
    NTT Transmission Systems Labs
    NTT
    Y-808A 1-2356 Take Yokosuka
    Kanagawa 238-03 Japan
     Tel: +81 468-59-3160; Fax: +81 468-59-3396
     Email: TAKAO () NTTTSD NTT JP


and discuss two very new research projects that are being presented this
year, one at GLOBECOM'93 (Houston) and the other at ICCD'93 (Boston).
Since papers about these projects are available in English, here I
simply point readers to them and provide a short abstract.


  Multiple-Access Optical Network Architecture Employing a
     Wavelength-and-Network-Division Technique: MANDALA
        (GLOBECOM'93)
  Abstract: A novel multiple-access optical network architecture is
presented  that employs not only the WDM [wavelength division
multiplexing] technique, but also division of networks. The subnetworks
are connected to each other via a wavelength-dependent interconnection
network, and pairs of subnetworks are optically linked with different
combinations for each wavelength. Through an analysis of the throughput
and delay for the slotted ALOHA protocol, the architecture is confirmed
to be improved from the conventional one that employs only the WDM
technique.  For example, the improvement ratio of the throughput for a
four-wavelength network is 2.4, and that for an eight-wavelength is 4.4.


    [ The name of this project was confusing to me, as it may well be to
others, because MANDALA, the name of ancient multi-armed deity, is also
used as the name of at least two other networking projects in Japan.
However, Dr. Matsumoto believes that his work is unrelated to those. In
the current research, MANDALA stands for Multiple-access-network
Architecture employing Network Division And Light-wavelength Assignment,
and refers as explained above to the ability to build essentially
independent virtual networks with 1nm wavelength separation, DKK.




  A Three-Dimensional Mesh Multiprocessor System Using Board-to-Board
     Free-Space Optical Interconnects: COSINE-III
        (ICCD'93)
  Abstract: A prototype multiprocessor  system using  board-to-board
free-space optical interconnects distributed over the processor boards
is constructed for the first time. The system consists of 64 processing
units interconnected in a three-dimensional (3-D) mesh network with the
help of bidirectional free-space optical interconnects. Theoretical
analysis of signal delay and wiring congestion characteristics in the
3-D mesh network using free-space optical interconnects concludes that
the network is superior to that using a conventional backplane
interconnects. In the prototype system, signal transmission of all 96
free-space optical interconnects is stable even after repeated
extraction and insertion of the processor boards, and system operation
without error for 100 hours is performed. The system is also shown to be
easy to extend to a larger and more flexible system.


    [The system name COSINE-III stands for Computer system employing
Optical Spatial INterconnections for Experimentation-III. Each of the 64
cpus is formed by combining 2 T800 transputers with 4MB of local memory.
There are 16 cpus (in a 4x4 mesh) on a board, and four stacked boards
25mm apart. Each cpu has six bidirectional communication links, four
electrical (standard T800 configuration, 20Mb/s) that connect the cpu
with its N-S-E-W neighbors on the board, and two free-space optical
interconnects which connect with the two facing  cpus on neighboring
boards. Signal transmission of 20Mb/s was performed  for all 96
free-space optical links used for board-to-board interconnects. The
authors discuss stiffening the boards and the use of reflection mirrors
to compactify and extend the system, DKK]
-----------------------------------------------


Additional information.


NTT recently had its annual International Symposium, 28 Oct 1993, with a
theme "Fiber Optic Access Networks and Services". It included lectures
on the following topics.


     Overview of NTT's R&D
     Fiber Optic Access Networks and Services
     Plan for Optical Access Networks
     Optical Fiber Network Structure
     Access Network Systems
     Telecommunication Network Services for Personal
       Communicators and Electronic Publishing
     Multimedia Application Services
     Multimedia LAN Services
     Broadband Network Services


The Symposium was chaired by NTT's President, Masashi Kojima, and
details can be obtained by writing to
      Secretariat for NTT International Symposium '93
      c/o International Public Relations Co Ltd
      Shinbashi Fuji Bldg, 2-1-3 Shinbashi, Minato-ku
      Tokyo 105 Japan
       Tel: +81 3 3595-1454; Fax: +81 3 3501-8945


In addition, the Japan Information Processing Development Center
(JIPDEC) has just published JIQ No.94, "Cutting-Edge New-Media
Technologies in Japan", containing articles (in English) on
teletex/videotex, HDTV, bi-directional CATV, TV phones, video
conferencing, etc. This individual issue can be obtained for Y3500, or
an annual subscription for Y13000, by writing to the following.


       JIPDEC
       3-5-8 Shibakoen, Minato-ku
       Tokyo 105, Japan
        Tel: +81 3 3432-9384; Fax: +81 3 3432-9389


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