AN ULTRAFAST PHOTONIC ATM SWITCH BASED ON BIT-INTERLEAVE MULTIPLEXING

An optical ATM switch is proposed in which cells from individual input channels are time-division multiplexed in a bit-interleave manner. Th is switch can easily handle multicast switching because it is based on a broadcast-and-select network. Compared to an alternative switch tha t uses a cell-interleave time-division multiplexing scheme, the propos ed optical switch has a much simpler structure, It does not need a cel l compressor at each input and a cell expander at each output, which g reatly reduces hardware complexity. Feasibility analyzes showed that a 64 x 64 photonic ATM switch with 2.5 Gb/s input/output is possible us ing the proposed technology, In an experimental demonstration, 4 b cel ls were selected from a 55 Gb/s bit-interleave multiplexed cell stream by using a new nonlinear optical fiber switch, With its high switch t hroughput, our switch is a strong candidate for future large-capacity optical snitching nodes.