Abstract

An issue of considerable interest in the field of high-speed network and switch design is to find the practical limits to the achievable bandwidths of switching and routing networks made of passive optical stars and multiwavelength tunable lasers and receivers. In previous work, we^[1] and others^[2] have discussed the limitations due to power budget limitations and available optical spectrum on the capacity of switches which use such multiwavelength optical star networks at the core of the switch fabric. Henry^[2] has given an argument which illustrates a third capacity limit due to the bandwidth available within the switch for communicating the switch control functions to the crosspoint elements of the switch.

© 1991 Optical Society of America