A 2.56-Tb/s multiwavelength and scalable switch-fabric for fast packet-switching networks

We propose an implementation of a terabits-per-second crossbar-equivalent switch-fabric for packet-switching networks. It consists of switch-modules employing semiconductor optical amplifier gates (SOAGs), arrayed waveguide grating routers, and multiple wavelength-channels. It offers large modularity and a small internal loss. The number of SOAGs in a 256/spl times/256 switch-fabric is one-eighth that of a conventional switch-fabric. Scalability up to 2.56 Tb/s is demonstrated by a 10 Gb/s transmission experiment in which the input level into the switch-module was observed to possess a dynamic range of 6 dB.