Performance Evaluation of a New Photonic ATM Switching Architecture Based on WDM

A new gigabit ATM photonic switching architecture is here presented and first experimental results are reported. The matrix is based on wavelength encoding of cells and on the broadcast-and-select principle for routing. A suitable management of fibre delay lines allows alloptical output queueing inside each switching element. These output buffered switching elements are then interconnected in a multi-stage Clos architecture and different design options are discussed in order to achieve a terabit capacity and simultaneously meet the ATM switching requirements. In particular, the feasibility of interstage flow control is proved and its benefits on system performance