COMPACT OPTICAL WDM ATM SWITCH WITH AN AGGREGATE 4-TBIT/S THROUGHPUT/

We propose a novel scheme for interconnection of multiple high-speed ( 2.5/10 Gbit/s) asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) streams through an opt ical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network with a total netwo rk capacity of up to 4 Tbit/s. The proposed architecture is based on p lacing the optical WDM portion of the network in a physically small ar ea, i.e., one central office or in a single rack. This helps to avoid technological obstacles such as power budget, dispersion, and synchron ization limitations as well as optical output buffering The interconne ction is an ATM packet switched network and provides optical contentio n resolution. We show that the implementation of such a network is pos sible using currently available optoelectronic technology. An optional extension of the network is proposed by a combination of WDM and spac e division multiplexing (SDM) technology. Simulation results are prese nted indicating network throughput of lip to 100%.