High-speed optical data switching system

摘要

A system and method for high-speed parallel switching of digital data sequences using an all-optical technique is described. Each input digital data sequence is encoded into an optical pattern comprising of several cells. The encoded optical pattern can be of various sizes and shapes depending on cost and quality considerations. A unique modulating pattern is selected for each digital data sequence based on the destination address of that data sequence. Every cell of each encoded optical pattern is modulated using the selected modulating pattern to obtain a modulated-encoded optical pattern. Each modulated-encoded optical pattern corresponds to a specific input data sequence. All of the modulated-encoded optical patterns are superposed to obtain a composite modulated-encoded optical pattern. The composite pattern is optically broadcast to all possible outputs of the parallel switch. All the destination receivers simultaneously demodulate the composite pattern using the unique modulating pattern that corresponds to their destination address and thus extract the encoded data sequence sent to them. The demodulated-encoded data sequences are decoded back from optical to digital form and routed to their destination by conventional techniques.