This section was established to reduce the lead time for the publication of Letters containing new, significant material in rapidly advancing areas of optics judged compelling in their timeliness. The author of such a Letter should have his manuscript reviewed by an OSA Fellow who has similar technical interests and is not a member of the author's institution. The Letter should then be submitted to the Editor, accompanied by a LETTER OF ENDORSE

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The concept of a perfect shuffle is reviewed. Holographic approaches based on implementing a point spread function equivalent to the sum of two shifted delta functions are suggested. Interferometric approaches based on splitting an image and then combining them in a shifted manner are also suggested.

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Regular free-space interconnects such as the perfect shuffle and banyan provided by beam splitters, lenses, and mirrors connect optical logic gates arranged in 2-D arrays. An algorithmic design technique transforms arbitrary logic equations into a near-optimal depth circuit. Analysis shows that an arbitrary interconnect makes little or no improvement in circuit depth and can even reduce throughput. Gate count is normally higher with a regular interconnect, and we show cost bounds. We conclude that regularly interconnected circuits will have a higher gate count compared with arbitrarily interconnected circuits using the design techniques presented here and that regular free-space interconnects are comparable with arbitrary interconnects in terms of circuit depth and are preferred to arbitrary interconnects for maximizing throughput.

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