Packet loss in a bufferless optical WDM switch employing shared tunable wavelength converters

In this paper, we propose an architecture for a bufferless packet optical s witch employing the wavelength dimension for contention resolution. The opt ical packet switch is equipped with tunable wavelength converters shared am ong the input lines. An analytical model is proposed in order to determine the number of converters needed to satisfy prefixed packet loss probability constraints. This analytical model very accurately fits with simulations r esults, A sensitivity analysis of the required number of converters as a fu nction of the main system parameters (number of input and output lines, num ber of wavelengths,...) and traffic parameters has been carried out, Making use of the introduced dimensioning procedure we have observed that the pro posed architecture allows a saving in terms of employed number of converter s with respect to the other architectures proposed in literature. Such a sa ving can reach about 95% of the number of converters.