Abstract

In an output buffered optical asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch [1,2,3] subjected to a uniform, non-bursty load, the attainment of a cell loss of 10^-11 requires a buffer depth of 55 cells [4] under a traffic load of 0.8; this doubles for a load of 0.9. For bursty loads, as would be encountered in practice with data traffic, the required buffer depth is much larger, and figures of several thousand cells have been quoted [1]. Current optical ATM experiments exhibit much lower buffer depths (e.g. 23 cells [2]) limited either by the low number of possible recirculations in a loop [2], or by the excessive hardware that would be required for larger buffer depths [3].

© 1997 Optical Society of America