This paper presents an architecture and implementation issues of an “almost-all” optical packet switch that does not rely on recirculating loops for storage implementation. The architecture is based on two rearrangeably nonblocking stages interconnected by optical delay lines with different amounts of delay. We investigate the probability of loss and the switch latency as a function of link uti...

Wavelength conversion has been proposed for use in wavelength-division multiplexed networks to improve efficiency. This study highlights systems challenges and performance issues which need to be addressed in order to incorporate wavelength conversion effectively. A review/survey of the enabling technologies, design methods, and analytical models used in wavelengthconvertible networks is provided.

The year 2002 has brought a turn around in the optical networking. Several technologies that were hot until last year are no longer so. Beginning with networking trends and recent DWDM records, a sample of recent optical networking products and applications will be presented. Key technological developments that made optical networking a hot topic will be explained. Upcoming optical technologies...

This paper reviews the various optical space switch structures on III–V semiconductor material. Their characteristics are discussed in the context of optical transport and switching network applications exploiting wavelength division multiplexing.

This contribution gives a short introduction in optical WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) networks with special focus on wide-area transport networks and on a possible evolution scenario towards all-optical networks. Furthermore, design and planning aspects for a WDM network are discussed. This comprises a short overview on a planning process in general and a presentation of some specific ...

This paper presents a token-based channel access protocol for wavelength division multiplexed optically interconnected multiprocessors. Our empirical study of access protocols based on slotted time division multiplexed data and control channels reveals that such protocols typically suffer from excessive slot synchronization latency due to static slot preallocation. The proposed token-based time...

We survey the theoretical results obtained for wavelength routing in all–optical networks, present some new results and propose several open problems. In all–optical networks the vast bandwidth available is utilized through wavelength division multiplexing: a single physical optical link can carry several logical signals, provided that they are transmitted on different wavelengths. The informat...

In this contribution we develop a theoretical statistical approach to predict the acceptable bandwidth tolerances for optical filter cascades in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks. We also establish tolerances for the center frequency misalignments considering a statistical approach presented in a previous work. The optical filters analyzed have a trapezoidal shape, and different b...