Contents

Network Systems Network Trends Switch Fabric Type of Switches Optical Cross Connects Optical Cross Connects Architecture Large Scale Switches Optical Router Applications

Development Milestones

2004 International Engineering Consortium

Network
Network Connectivity
Point to Point: one to one Broadcast: one to many Multicast: many to many

Network Span
Local / Metro Area Network Wide Area Network Long Haul Network

Data Rates
Voice 64kbps Video 155Mbps, etc.

Service Types
Constant or Variable bit rate Messaging Quality of Service
3

Fully Connected, Un-switched Network

Ports Ports

Problem - limited and could not scale to thousands or millions of users Solution - switched network
4

Switched Network

Pervasive, high-bandwidth, reliable, transparent

5

Optical Network - Issues

Capacity
2.5 Gb/s 10 Gb/s 40 Gb/s Larger

Control (switching)
Electronics 10 Gb/s (GaAs, InP) can deliver low order optical cross connects (16 x 16) > 10 Gb/s ??(mainly power dissipation) Optical

Reconfiguration:
Static or dynamic
6

Optical Network Elements

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (OADM) Optical Gateways:
A critical network element. A common transport structure to cater for
variety of bit rates and signal formats, ranging from asynchronous legacy networks to 10Gbps SONET systems, a mix of standard SONET and ATM services.

Switching - Electrical
Right now, the optical switches have electrical core, where
Light pulses are converted back into electrical signals so that their route across the middle of the switch can be handled by conventional ASICs (application specific integrated circuits).

This has a number of advantages:

Enabling the switches to handle smaller bandwidths than whole wavelengths, which fits in with current market requirements. Easier network management, because standards are in place and products are available. Optical equivalents are not, at present.

But, there are concerns that electrical cores wont be able to cope with the explosion in the number of wavelengths in telecom networks (deployment of DWDM). Until recently, state-of-the-art ASIC technology wouldnt support anything more than a 512-by-512-port electrical core, and carriers demanding for at least double this capacity.
8

Optical Network Elements - Switches

Optical Bidirectional Line Switched Rings Optical Cross-Connect (OXC)
Efficient use of existing optical fibre facilities at the optical level becomes critical as service providers started moving wavelengths around the glob. Routing and grooming are key areas, and that is where OXCs are used.
International Engineering Consortium, 2004

Optical Switches
To provide high switching speed
To avoid the electronics speed bottleneck I/O interface and switching fabric in optics Switching control and switching fabric in optics Switches act as routers and redirect the optical

signals in a specific direction.

It uses a simple 2x2 switch as a building block
Main feature: Switching time (msecs - to- sub nsecs)
10

All Optical Switches

Thats the theory. But, things are turning out a little different in practice.
Vendors are finding ways of building larger scale electrical cores, with switch of many thousands of ports. This may encourage carriers to put off decisions on moving to all-optical switches.

Does this mean that is the end of the idea of alloptical networks?
Well, not really. All that it might do is delay things.

11

Electrical vs. Optical - Cross Connects

Electrical Limits 1024 512 High power consumption: e.g. 1024x1024: 4 kW Jitter: very large Large switches Need OE/EO conversion 128 64 32 16 8
10 MHz 100 MHz

Optical

Number of ports

256

Bipolar or GaAs

Electrical
1 GHz 10 GHz 100 GHz

Data rate
M C Wu
DS3 OC3 OC12 OC48 OC192

12

Switching: Types
Circuit Switching: E.g. Telephone
Continuous streams
no bursts no buffers

Connections are created and removed

- Buffering does not exist in circuit-switches

Packet Switching: Uses store & forward

- The configuration may change per packet - Switching/forwarding is based on the destination address mapping - Switching table is used to provide the mapping - Switching table changes according to network dynamics (e.g. congestion, failure)
13

Switching Fabric
Electro-optical 2 x 2 switching elements are the key devices in the fabrication of N x N optical data path. The switching elements rely on the electro-optic effect (i.e., the application of an electric field to an electro-optical material changes the refractive index of the material). The result is a 2x2 optical switching element whose state is determined by an electrical control signal. Can be fabricated using LiNbO3 as well as other materials.
Electrical control Electrical control

Optical input

Optical output

Optical input

Optical output
14

Switching Fabric contd.

Input interface Output interface

Switching fabric

Switching control

15

Switching Fabric contd.

1.3 mm intra-office

...

...

Optical transport system (1.55 mm WDM)

Terminating equipment | SONET, ATM, IP... 16

...

Optical Crossconnect (OXC)

...

...

...

Transponders

Connectivity
Since a switch work as a permutation that routes input to the outputs, therefore it needs to provide at least N! different configuration A minimum number of Log2(N!) is needed to configure N! different permutation Blocking Non-Blocking

17

Connectivity - Blocking
Occurs when one reduces the number of crosspoints in order to achieve low crosstalk and less complexity. In some switching architecture internal blocking may be reduced to zero by:
Improving the switching control: Wide sense nonblocking Rearranging the switching configuration: Rearrangeably non-blocking

18

Connectivity Non-blocking
A new connection can always be made without disturbing the existing connections: Strictly Non-blocking
A connection path can always be found no matter what the current switching configuration is or what switching control algorithm is used

Wide-Sense Non-blocking
A connection path can always be found regardless of the current switching configuration provided a good switching control algorithm is employed No re-routing of the existing connections

Rearrangeably Non-blocking
The same as wide-sense, but requires re-routing of the existing connections to avoid blocking Use fewer switches Requires more complex control algorithm

19

Time Division Switching

Interchanges sample (slot) position within a frame: i.e. time slot interchange (TSI)
when demultiplexing, position in frame determines output link read and write to shared memory in different order
1
M U X D E M U X

4 3 2 1

TSI
1 2 3 4

2 4 1 3

20

TSI - Properties
Simple Time taken to read and write to memory is the bottle-neck For 120,000 telephone circuits
each circuit reads and writes memory once every 125 ms. number of operations per second : 120,000 x 8000 x2 each operation takes around 0.5 ns => impossible with current technology

21

Space Division Switching

Crossbar

Clos
Benes

Spank - Benes
Spanke

22

Crossbar Architectures
Each sample takes a different path through the switch, depending on its destination Crossbar:
Simplest possible space-division switch Wide- sense blocking: When a connection is made it can
exclude the possibility of certain other connections being made 1 2 Input ports 3 4 1 2 3
Output ports
23

Crosspoints
can be turned on or off

Sessions: (1,4) (2,2) (3,1) (4,3)

Crossbar Architectures - Blocking

Input channels

1
Output channels - Bars Input channels

2 3 4 N X N matrix S/W

M inputs x N outputs Switch configuration: set of input-output pairs simultaneously connected that define the state of the switch For X crosspoints, each point is either ON or Off, so at most 2X different configurations are supported by the switch.

Case 1:
- (3,2) ok

Optical switching element

- (4,3) blocked

Output channels - Cross

24

Crossbar Architecture - Wide-Sense Nonblocking

Input channels

Rule: To connect ith input to

the jth output, the algorithm sets the switch in the ith row and jth column at the BAR state and sets all other switches on its left and below at the CROSS

1
Input channels

3
4

state.
Case 2:

4
Output channels

- (2,4) ok - (3,2) ok - (4,3) ok

25

Crossbar Architectures 2 Layer

Only uses 6 x 9 = 54 cross points rather than 9 x 9 = 81 Penalty is loss of connectivity 2

3x3

26

Crossbar Architectures - 3 Layer

1 2 3

1 2 3

Output ports

Input port

4 5 6 7 8 9 Blocking still possible

4 5 6
7 8 9

http://www.aston.ac.uk/~blowkj/index.htm

27

Crossbar Architectures - 3 Layer

1 2 3 1 2 3

Blocking

4 5 6

7 8 9

The first four connections 4 have made it 5 impossible for 6 3rd input to be connected to 7th 7 * output
8 9 The 3rd input can only reach the bottom middle switch The 7th output line can only be reached from the top output switch.
28

Crossbar Architecture - Features

Architecture: Switch element: Switch drive: Switch loss: SNR: Wide Sense Non-blocking N2 (based on 2 x 2) N2 (2N-1).Lse +2Lfs XT 10log10(N-1)

Where XT; Crosstalk (dB), Lse; Loss/switch element Lfs; Fibre-switch loss

29

Crossbar Architecture - Properties

Advantages:

simple to implement simple control strict sense non-blocking Low crosstalk: Waveguides do not cross each other
number of crosspoints = N2 large VLSI space vulnerable to single faults the overall insertion loss is different for each inputoutput pair: Each path goes through a different number of switches
30

Disadvantages

Time-Space Switching Arch.

1 2 3 4 M U X

time 1
2 1 TSI
2 1

time 1

M U X

4 3

TSI

3 4

3 1

2 4

Each input trunk in a crossbar is preceded with a TSI Delay samples so that they arrive at the right time for the space division switchs schedule
Note: No. of Crosspoints N = 4 (not 16)
31

Time-Space Switching Arch.

Can flip samples both on input and output trunk Gives more flexibility => lowers call blocking probability
TSI TSI TSI

Complex in terms of:

- Number of cross points - Size of buffers -Speed of the switch bus (internal speed)

TSI

TSI

TSI

TSI

TSI

32

Clos Architecture
1

nxp
1

kxk
1

pxn
1

n
32

It is a 3-stage network n - 1st & 2nd stages are fully

connected - 2nd & 3rd stages are fully connected - 1st & 3rd stages are not directly connected

33

2
64

32 993

64

32

Defined by: (n, k, p, k, n) e.g. (32, 3, 3, 3, 32) (3, 3, 5, 2, 2,) Widely used

k
N= 1024

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 1 (nxp) Stage 2(kxk) Stage 3 (pxn)

33

Clos Architecture
In this 3-stage configuration N x N switch has: 2pN + pk2 crosspoints (note N = nk) (compared to N2 for a 1-stage crossbar) If n = k, then the total number of crosspoints = 3pN, which is < N2 if 3p < N.

Problem: Internal blocking Larger number of crossovers when p is large.

34

Clos Architecture Blocking

If p < 2n-1, blocking can occur as follows: - Suppose input 1 want to connect to output 1 (these could be any fixed input and outputs. - There are n-1 other inputs at k-switch (stage 1). Suppose they each go to a different switch at stage 2. - Similarly, suppose the n-1 outputs in the first switch other than output 1 at the third stage are all busy again using n1 different switches at stage 2. - If p < n -1 + n -1 +1 = 2n -1 then there will be no line that input 1 can use to connect to output 1.

If p = 2n -1, then
Total Switch Element: 2kn(2n-1) + (2n -1)k2
35

Clos Architecture Blocking

If p = 2n -1, then
Total Switch Element: 2kn(2n-1) + (2n -1)k2

Since k = N/n, therefore

the number of switch elements is minimised when n ~(N/2) 0.5.

Thus the number switch elements = 4 (2)0.5 N3/2 4N, which is less than N2 for the crossbar switch
36

Clos Architecture Non-blocking

If p 2n -1, the Clos network is strict sense nonblocking (i.e. there will free line that can be used to connect input 1 to output 1) If p n, then the Clos network is re-arrangeably non-blocking (RNB) (i.e. reducing the number of middle stage switches)

37

Clos Architecture Example

If N = 1000 and and n = 10, then the number of switches at the:
1st & 3rd stages = N/n = 1000/10 = 100 1st stage = 10 x p 3rd stage = p x 10 2nd stage = p x k x k.

If p = 2n -1 = 19, then the resulting switch will be non-blocking. If p < 19, then blocking occurs. For p = 19, the number of crosspoints are given as follow:38

Clos Architecture Example

contd.

In the case of a full 1000 x 1000 crossbar switch, no blocking occurs, requiring 106 crosspoints. For n = 10 and p = 19, the number of crosspoints at
1st and 3rd stages = no. of stages x (n x p) x k = 2 x (10 x 19) x 100 = 38,000 crosspoints 2nd stage (p = 19 crossbars each of size 100 x 100, because N/n = 100. = p x k x k = 19 x 100 x 100 = 190000 crosspoints.

The total no. of crosspoints = 38000 + 190000 = 228000 Vs. the 106 points used by the complete crossbar.

39

Clos Architecture Example

contd.

Since k = N/n, the number of switch elements k is minimised when n ~(N/2)0.5 = (1000/2) 0.5 =~ 23 instead of 19. then k = N/n = 1000/23 =~ 44 switches in the 1st & 3rd stages, and p = 2(23) -1 = 45. the number of crosspoints at 1st and 3rd stages = no. of stages x (n x p) x k = 2 x (23 x 45) x 44 = 91080. the number of crosspoints at 2nd stage = p x k x k = 45 x 44 x 44 = 87120. Since n = 23 does not divide 1000 evenly, we actually have 12 extra inputs and outputs that we could switch with this configuration ( 23x44=1012 and 1012 - 1000 = 12). Thus the total number of crosspoints = 91090 + 87120 = 178200 best case for a non-blocking switch as compared with the:
1,000,000 for the complete crossbar and about 190,000 for n = 10.

This is a factor of over 11 less equipment needed to switch 1000 customers!

40

Benes Architecture
22 N/2 N/2 Benes 22

N
N/2 N/2 Benes

NxN switch (N is power of 2) RNB built recursively from Clos network: 1st step Clos(2, N/2, 2, N/2, 2) Rearrangably non-blocking
41

Benes Architecture - contd.

Number of stages = 2.log2N - 1 Number of 2x2 switches /each stage = N/2 Total number of crosspoints ~N.(log2N -1)/2 For large N, total number of crosspoint = N.log2N

Benes network is RNB (not SNB) and so may need re-routing: Modular switch design Multicast switches can be built in a modular fashion by including a copy module in front of the point-to-point switch
42

Benes Architecture - contd.

1 2
3 4 1 2 3 4 5

5
6 7 8

6 7 8

e.g. Connection sequence 2 to 1 1 to 5 3 to 3 4 to 2 Fails

43

Note there is no way 4 to 2 connection could be made

Benes Architecture Non-blocking

contd.

Now use different connections

e.g. 2 to 1 1 to 5 3 to 3 4 to 2 OK
44

Three Building Blocks for OXC

International Engineering Consortium, 2004

45

Optical Switches - Tow-Position Switch

Control Signal Input port Ii Optical Switch

I1 Output ports I2

The input signal can be switched to either of the output ports without having any access to the information carried by the input optical signal In the ideal case, the switching must be fast and low-loss. 100% of the light should be passed to one port and 0% to the other port.
46

Two Position Switch - contd.

The two-position switch requires three fibres with collimating lenses and a prism.
Lens B A C Fibre B A C
47

Prisem

Light arriving at port A needs to be switched to port C.

Optical Switches - Applications

Provisioning: Used inside optical cross connects to reconfigure them and set-up new path. [1 - 10 msecs] Protection Switching: To switch traffic from a primary fibre onto another fibre in the case of a failure. [1 to 10 usecs] Packet Switching: 53 byte packet @ 10 Gb/s. [1 nsecs]

External Modulation: To switch on-off a laser source at a very high speed. [10 psecs << bit duration] Network performance monitoring Reconfiguration and restoration: Fibre networks
48

Optical Switching - Technologies

Slow Switches (msecs) Free space Mechanical Solid state Fast Switches (nsecs) LiNbO Non-linear InP
49

Optical Switches - Criteria

Maximum Throughput:
Total number of bits/sec switched through. To increase throughput:
Increase the number of I/O ports Bit rate of each line

Maximum Switching Speed

Important:
Packet switched Time division multiplexed

Minimum Number of Crosspoints

As the size of the switch increases, so does the number of crosspoints, thus high cost Multistage switching architecture are used to reduce the number of crosspoints.
50

Criteria - contd.
Minimum Blocking Probability: Important in circuit switching
External blocking: when the incoming call request an output port that is blocked.
Subject to external traffic conditions

Internal blocking: when no input port is available.

Subject to the switch design

Minimum Delay and Loss Probability

Important in packet switching, where buffering is used, which will introduce additional delay.

Scalability
Replacing an old switch with a new larger switch is costly. Incrementally increasing the size of the existing switching as traffice grows is desirable

Broadcasting and Multicasting

To provide conferencing and multimedia applications
51

Criteria - contd.
Optical switches with low insertion loss and low crosstalk are needed in broadband optical networks Restoration Reprovisioning Bandwidth on demand Conventional optical switches cannot satisfy all the requirements:
Solid-state guided-wave switches (electro-optic, thermo-optic, SOA): limited expandability due to high crosstalk, loss, and power consumption Optomechanical switches: excellent insertion loss and crosstalk, but are bulky, expensive, and suffer from poor reliability and scalability
52

Optical Switches - Types

Waveguide
Electro-optic effect - Semiconductor optical amplifier - LiNbO - InP Thermo-optic effect - SiO2 / Si - Polymer

- Fast - Complex - Maturing - Lossy - Slow - Maturity - Reliable

Free Space
- Liquid crystal - Mechanical / fibre - Micro-optics (MEMs)

- Slow - Low loss & crosstalk - Inherently scalable

53

Optical Switches - Thermo-Optic Effect

Some materials have strong thermo-optics effect that could be used to guide light in a waveguide. The thermo-optic coefficient is:
Silica glass Polymer dn/dt = 1 x 10-5 K-1 dn/dt = -1 x 10-5 K-1

Difference thermo-optic effect results in different switch design.

+v Electrodes

54

Thermo-Optic Switch - Silica

Mach Zehnder Configuration Input Ii Outputs I1 I2

Heater

I1 sin 2 ( / 2) Ii
Directional coupler

I2 cos 2 ( / 2) Ii

55

Thermo-Optic Switch - Polymer

Y Junction Configuration PH1 Ii

I1

PH2
I2

If PH1 = PH2 = 0, then I1 = I2 = Ii /2 If PH1 = Pon & PH2 = 0, then I1 = 0, and I2 = Ii If PH1 = 0 & PH2 = Pon, then I1 = Ii, and I2 = 0
56

Thermo-Optic Switch - Characteristics

Parameters 2x2 Si Poly. No. of S/W Insertion Loss (dB) Crosstalk S/W time (ms) S/W power (W) 1 2 22 2 1 0.6 39 1 Switch Size Si 64 4 18 ~3 5 8x8 Poly. 112 10 17 1.5 4.5 16 x 16 Si 256 18 13 ~4 15

0.6 0.005

57

Mechanical Switches
1st Generation Mid. 1980s
Loss Speed Size Reliability Applications: Low (0.2 0.3 dB) slow (msecs) Large Has moving part - Instrumentation - Telecom (a few)
8X8 3 dB 55 dB 10 msecs
58

Size: Loss: Crosstalk: Switching time:

Micro Electro Mechanical Switches

Combines optomechanical structures, microactuators, and micro-optical elements on the same substrate

Input fibres

Made using micro-machining Free-space: polarisation independent Independent of:

Bit-rate Wavelength Protocol

Speed: 1 10 ms

Output fibres
Lens Flat mirror Raised mirror

4 x 4 Cross point switch

59

Micro Electro Mechanical Switches

This tiny electronically tiltable mirror is a building block in devices such as all-optical cross-connects and new types of computer data projectors.

I/O Fibers

Reflector MEMS 2-axis Tilt Mirrors

Imaging Lenses

Lightwave
60

Micro Electro Mechanical Switches

Monolithic integration --> Compact, lightweight, scalable Batch fabrication --> Low cost Share the advantages of optomechanical switches without their adverse effects General Characteristics: + Low insertion loss (~ 1 dB) + Small crosstalk (< - 60 dB) + Passive optical switch (independent of wavelength, bit rate, + + +
modulation format) No standby power Rugged Scalable to large-scale optical crossconnect switches Moderate speed ( switch time from 100 nsec to 10 msec)
61

Large Optical Switches - Optical Cross Connects

Switch sizes > 2 X 2 can be implemented by means of cascading small switches. Used in all network control Bit rate at which it functions depends on the applications. 2.5 Gb/s are currently available Different sizes are available, but not up to thousands (at the moment)
Control

1 2

1 2

N X N Cross Connect

N
62

Optical Cross Connects

63

Optical Switches
Electrical switching and optical cabling: inputs come from different clock domains resulting in a switch that is generally timing-transparent.

Optical switching and optical cabling, clocking and synchronization are not significant issues because the streams are independent. Inputs come from different clock domains, so the switch is completely timing-transparent.

64

Optical Switches - System Considerations

For a given switch size N,
the number of 2x2 switches should be as small as possible. When the number is large it will result in: high cost large optical power loss and crosstalk.

A switch with reduced number of crosspoints in each configured path, can have a large internal blocking probability In some switching architectures, the internal blocking probability can be reduced to zero by:
using a good switching control or rearranging the current switch configuration
65

Optical Routers
In the core large optical-switching elements have already started to appear to handle optical circuits, Large, centralized IP routers are also appearing, because they're an extremely efficient solution to IP routing. There are a variety of technologies and issues that influence the architecture for these types of network elements. To transport Tbps, new optical technologies have emerged to enable the economic transport of incredible bandwidth over single-mode optical fibrer, including DWDM and OTDM. That means individual optical links can sustain the enormous traffic needed to support the continuing growth of IP data.
66

Optical Routers
High-power, low-noise optical amplifiers-or erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs)-and pulseshaping technologies mean the high-bit-rate optical signals do not require electronic regeneration except on the very longest fiber spans. New fibres with larger cross-sectional areas mean a large number of high-bit-rate signals can be wavelength-multiplexed onto a single fiber. Thus, it is becoming affordable to actually construct links that can support Tbps of capacity between routing and switching centres.
67

Network Problems - Scalability

The bottleneck at the core of the expanding network is at the junction points of the fibre bundles: I.e the switching and routing centres. With Tbps links, a huge amount of data converges into a single central office (CO) (see Figure 1). New routers emerge only to be swamped with traffic within months.

68

Network Problems - Scalability

Solution:
Use of cluster of several routers (or crossconnects). However, clustering is not a good long-term solution, because: a cluster of crossconnects requires interconnecting links between the crossconnects. As the number of switches in the cluster grows beyond about 4 or 5, the interconnecting links consume most of the ports. Clustered routers have the same problem. the IP traffic must transit more and more devices, and the latency (the delay of IP packets) and jitter (delay variance) of the cluster grow quickly. the hot-spot problem, where one of the small routers in a cluster can be overwhelmed by temporary traffic dynamics in the network that do not exceed the combined node capacity. This swamping effect also increases the delay of that saturated small router.
69

Large, Centralized Router

Current trend in XCs is to use large microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based OXCs for core node protection and grooming of DWDM traffic. Similarly, large centralized routers are an efficient alternative to solving bottleneck problems:
by avoiding the hot-spot problems of distributed routers, eliminating clustering problems, and permitting global scheduling.

A centralized (single-hop), synchronous, large nonblocking switch fabric has the best latency and throughput performance of all router topologies. It also scales better than a clustered system-and it results in less complicated system software for the network element.
70

IP Routers + Optical Network Elements

End Customer Router Router ONE Router ONE ONE

Router

Router

Optical Network

A V Lehmen, Telecordia Tech. 71

Optical Layer Capability: Reconfigurability

IP Router
IP Router IP Router IP Router

OXC - A

OXC - B

OXC - C

IP Router

Crossconnects are reconfigurable: Can provide restoration capability Provide connectivity between any two routers

OXC - D
A V Lehmen, Telecordia Tech. 72

Architecture 1: Large Routers + High capacity Fibres

Access lines
A

Z All

traffic flows through routers Optics just transports the data from one point to another IP layer can handle restoration Network is simple

Access lines

A V Lehmen, Telecordia Tech.

But.. - more hops translates into more packet delays - each router has to deal with thru traffic as well as terminating traffic
73

Architecture 2: Small Routers + OXC

OXC OXC OXC Router interconnectivity through OXCs Only terminating traffic goes through routers Thru traffic carried on optical bypass Restoration can be done at the optical layer Network can handle other types of traffic as well But: network has more NEs, and is more complicated
74

OXC

A V Lehmen, Telecordia Tech.

Dynamic Set-Up of Optical Connection

IP Router IP Router IP Router IP Router

OXC - A

OXC - B

OXC - C

A V Lehmen, Telecordia Tech.

1. Router requests a new optical connection 2. OXC A makes admission and routing decisions 3. Path set-up message propagates through network 4. Connection is established and routers are notified
75

OXC Router-Selector Architecture

1
N N

1
N

Type I - 1 x N & N x 1 optical switches Type II - 1 x N passive optical splitter - N x 1 Optical switches

76

OXC Router - Feature

Type I TypeII

Architecture Switch Element

Switch Drive Switch Loss SNR Where

Strictly non-blocking 2N(N-1)

2Nlog2N (2Nlog2N)Lse+4Lfs 2XT-10log10(log2N)

N(N-1)
Nlog2N log2N(3+Lse)+2Lfs XT-10log10(log2N)

XT; Crosstalk (dB), Lse; Loss/switch element Lfs; Fibre-switch loss

77

OXC + Wavelength Converters

78

Optical Switches: - A comparison

Characteristic Traditional Optical Switches
>1ms
Not available Not available ~10 Million cycles (Mech.dev.)

Next Generation Optical Switches

<1sec
Dynamic power partition between ports High dynamic range VOA ~10 Billion cycles (Optoelect.)

Switching Speed
Multicast Integrated VOA functionality Reliability

Insertion loss Cross talk

Scalability

Low
High Low

Low
Low Medium-High
79

Optical Gateway Cross-Connect

Performs digital grooming, traditional multiplexing, and routing of lowerspeed circuits in mesh or ring network configurations. Specifically, it brings in lower rate SONET/SDH layer OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4 and OC48/STM-16 rates and electrical DS-3, STS-1 and STM-1e rates and grooms them into higher rate optical signals. Alcatel. 2001
80

IP-router with Tb/s throughput can be built with fast tunable lasers & NxN optical mux
From Input Port Buffer

Output 40G Rx 40G Rx 40G Rx retiming

T-Tx T-Tx Scheduler T-Tx

40 G mod 40 G mod 40 G mod

T-Tx

40 G mod

40G Rx

Clock

Yamada et al., 1998

81

Router & Optical Switch

CHIARO- OptIPuter Optical Switch Workshop

82

The Optical Future- Tomorrow's Architecture

Services are consolidated onto a single access line at the user site and fed into a Sonet multi-service provisioning platform at the carriers POP (point of presence). Several POPs feed traffic into a terabit switch capable of handling all traffic including IP, ATM and TDM. The terabit switches sit at the edge of a three-tier network of optical switcheslocal, regional and long distance-each of which has a mesh topology. DWDM is used throughout the network and access lines. Where fiber is scarce, FDM (frequency division multiplexing) is used to pack as much traffic as possible into wavelengths. Light signals no longer need regeneration on long distance routes.

83

Separate access networks carry telephony and data into the carriers point of presence. Voice traffic runs over a TDM (time division multiplexer) network running over a Sonet (synchronous optical network) backbone. IP traffic is shunted onto an ATM backbone running over other Sonet channels. The Sonet backbone comprises three tiers of rings at the local, regional and national level, interconnected by add-drop multiplexers and cross-connects. DWDM (dense wave division multiplexing) is in use in the regional and national rings, but not the local rings. Light signals need regenerating on long distance routes.

84