Design and performance of an optical path cross-connect system based on wavelength path concept

This paper describes the system design and performance of an optical path cross-connect (OPXC) system based on wavelength path concept. The (OPXC) is designed to offer 16 sets of input and output fiber ports with each fiber transporting eight multiwavelength signals for optical paths. Each optical path has a capacity of 2.5 Gb/s. Consequently, the total system throughput is 8/spl times/16/spl times/2.5=320 Gb/s and the OPXC features high modularity and expandability for switch components. By exploiting planar lightwave circuit (PLC) technologies, four sets of (8/spl times/16) delivery-and-coupling-type optical switches (DC-switches) are developed for the 320 Gb/s throughput OPXC system. The DC-switch offers the average insertion-loss of 12.6 dB and ON/OFF ratio of 42.1 dB. The PLC arrayed-waveguide gratings are confirmed to successfully demultiplex the eight directly modulated signals, multiplexed at a spacing of 1 nm, with a crosstalk of under -25 dB. Eight wavelength-division multiplexing signals, directly modulated at 2.5 Gb/s, are confirmed to be transported over 330 km via a cross-connection node in the test-bed system that simulates five-node network. The experimental performances demonstrated In this paper ensures full scale implementation of the proposed optical path cross-connect system with 320 Gb/s throughput and high integrity.