Scalable Silicon Photonic Switching Architectures for Optical Networks

摘要

Hybrid dilated Benes photonic switching architectures employ an arrangement of two-by-one (2×1) photonic and two-by-two (2×2) photonic elements to enjoy improved cross-talk performance while maintaining moderate cell counts. A jumpsuit switch optical network node architecture comprising multiple stages may operate more efficiently than single stage switching fabrics, by enabling manipulation of connectivity in some stages to achieve load balancing over other stages. Specifically, a first stage of switching fabrics connected to input ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance incoming signals over a second stage of switching fabrics coupled to output ports of the optical node. Additionally, a third stage of switching fabrics connected to add ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance added optical signals over the second stage of switching fabrics.

主权项

1. A switching fabric comprising:
a plurality of ports including input ports and output ports; and a plurality of photonic elements coupled in-between the input ports and the output ports, the plurality of photonic elements for switching signals between the input ports and the output ports, wherein the plurality of photonic elements are arranged into an architecture that includes a first outer-most switching column comprising rows of one-by-two (1×2) photonic elements coupled to the input ports, a second outermost column comprising rows of two-by-one (2×1) photonic elements coupled to the output ports, two intermediate switching stages each of which including at least one column comprising rows of two-by-two (2×2) switching elements, and a central switching column comprising rows of one-by-two (1×2) photonic elements coupled to two-by-one (2×1) photonic elements.