Abstract

The increased interest in high-speed, multiwavelength lightwave networks offers hope that optical switching will soon find a place in communication systems. Cross-connect, provisioning, protection and monitoring functions can all be provided with optical switch arrays. Guided-wave switch arrays can meet the size, speed and bandwidth requirements of these networks. Rearrangably non-blocking 16 × 16 switch fabrics comprised of over 100 integrated switches in a single package are available today (1) and larger arrays are possible in the future. Individual devices can be interconnected to form very large switching fabrics. These voltage controlled switches can serve the reconfiguration speed needs of high-speed packet switching as well as low-duty cycle protection switching. Current devices allow the simultaneous switching of all the channels in dense WDM systems. Alternatively, multiplexers and demultiplexers can be used with space switches to crossconnect all the channels of a multiple-fiber, multiple-wavelength system.

© 1994 Optical Society of America