Abstract

Rapidly increasing data traffic demands a scalable and data-oriented networking technology. Achieving packet switching directly in the optical layer can facilitate convergence of optical networking and data networking without relying on redundant optical-to-electrical, and electrical-to-optical signal conversions. The key challenge in realizing a multiwavelength optical-packet switching system lies in the lack of a viable optical random access memory (RAM) technology. Contemporary electronic routers rely on buffering and queuing in the RAM as the main mechanism for contention resolution. Fortunately optical-packet switching system can exploit an additional degree of freedom other than the time domain buffering—wavelength conversion. Contention resolution in optical packet switching system can be achieved by deflection in one or a combination of wavelength, time, and space domains. Optical routers may benefit from wavelength conversion as the primary means to achieve contention resolution. Unlike time buffering, wavelength conversion does not accompany packet latency, jitter, or sequence skews. Recent network simulations¹ have shown excellent performance in an all-optical packet switching system utilizing combined contention resolution in wavelength, time, space domains. This paper discusses an experimental demonstration of an all-optical packet switching system based on optical-label switching^2,3 and incorporating contention resolution in wavelength, time, and space domains.

© 2002 Optical Society of America