Optical Switching

Switch Fabrics, Techniques and Architectures

(INC lab) Oct 30, 2006

Outline

Introduction
Optical Switch Optical Packet Switch Optical Burst Switch GMPLS Conclusion
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Introduction

Internet traffic has doubled per year New services like VOD, IPTV DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is developed
Can transport tens to hundreds of wavelengths per fiber

Then, What is problem?

Slow O/E/O conversion. Electronic equipment is dependent on the data rate & protocol. (non-transparent)

Goal?
All optical!
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Optical switch

OXC
Switch Fabric

What is Optical Cross-Connect (OXC)?

Set up light paths

Electrical XC, All-optical XC, Opaque XC

Electrical XC All-optical XC

Process
Data rate & format Transparent? Implementation

O/E/O (slow)

O/O/O (fast)

No Easy

Yes Hard

Major difficulties of All-optical XC

The lack of processing at bit level in optical domain The lack of efficient buffering in optical domain
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Optical switch

Optical Switch Fabrics

Optical Switch Fabrics

Allow switching directly in the optical domain (All-optical)

Important parameters
Switching time () Insertion loss ( and loss uniformity at all input-output connections) Crosstalk () Extinction ratio (ratio of ON-OFF power) () Polarization-dependent loss () Reliability, energy usage, scalability, temperature resistance

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Optical switch

Optical Switch Fabrics

Main optical switching technologies

Opto-mechanical Switch
Use prisms, mirrors, directional couplers. Lack of scalability

Micro-electro-mechanical System Device (MEMS)

Use tiny reflective surfaces to redirect the light 2D-MEMS(on-off mirror) 3D-MEMS(movable mirror) Scalability low loss short switching time Low power consumption Low crosstalk Low polarization effect
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Optical switch Electro-optic Switch

Optical Switch Fabrics

Use a directional coupler Its coupling ratio is changed by varying the refractive index

Thermo-optic Switch Liquid-Crystal Switch Bubble Switch Acousto-optic Switch

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Optical switch -

Optical Switch Fabrics

Optomechanical Switch Switching time Insertion loss PDL Scalability Milliseconds Low Low Bad

MEMS Milliseconds Low Low Good

Electro-optic Nanoseconds High high Bad

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Optical switch

large switches

Main considerations in building Large switch

Number of small switches required Loss uniformity Number of crossovers
cause power loss, crosstalk

Blocking Characteristics
Blocking vs. non-blocking

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Optical Packet Switching

Optical Circuit Switching

Limited circuit Low efficiency (due to fixed bandwidth)

Optical Packet Switching

Using Packet ( = Header (for routing) + Data )

If Optical Packet Switching is realized, it can

allocate WDM channels on demand (microsecond) share network resource efficiently support burst traffic efficiently offer high-speed data rate/format transparency & configurability
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Optical Packet Switching

What is the problem in implementing OPS?

Long Switching time Buffer is needed

Long switching time is due to

Extracting the routing information from the header Controlling switching matrix electronically Performing the switching and buffering functions

Buffer at Optical domain is needed

Data should be buffered while header is processed When a contention is occurred When the bandwidth is not sufficient

We dont have perfect solutions yet.

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Optical Packet Switching

Contention Resolution Buffering

Using FDL (Fiber Delay Line) bulky, expensive, indefinite, Quality degradation Solutions to reduce the number of FDLs, synchronous manner Use TOWC (Tunable optical wavelength converter)

Deflection routing
Only one packet desired link, others longer links There can be the looping of packets

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Optical Packet Switching

Architecture
Output

Input

O/E interface: extract the header info. SNU INC lab.

FDL
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Optical Packet Switching

Shared Wavelength Converters

Reduce Tunable Wavelength converter

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Optical Burst Switching

Switch the channels entirely in the optical domain using electronic tech.
Process
Assemble the packets (have same destination) -> make bursts at the edge Bursts are assigned to wavelength channels Switched through transparently without any conversion Disassemble into the original packets

No need for Optical buffer.

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Optical Burst Switching

How is it possible?
reservation request (control packet) Using offset-time

reservation

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Optical Burst Switching

QoS Support

Bigger offset, lower probability of discard

Low priority burst

Optical Composite Burst Switching

Minimize packet loss
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Not discarded

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The future of Optical switching

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GMPLS - Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching

Extends common control plane to support various interfaces.

GMPLS can support
Packet switching Time-division (SONET/SDH) + MPS (wavelength switching) + Spatial-switching (OXC)

It can support integrated control and management

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Conclusion
Optical fiber is not fully exploited Switching functions must be executed optically Two obstacles

The lack of optical memory processing capabilities in optical domain

In the future, breakthroughs may counteract the fundamental limitations of optics Then, current network is completely changed

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