Performance evaluation of WSW2 switching fabric architecture with limited number of spectrum converters

Wavelength-Space-Wavelength (W-S-W) switching fabrics are considered in this paper. Recently, a few papers have been published, where strict-sense (SSNB) and wide-sense (WSNB) nonblocking conditions of such switching fabrics were elaborated. They require high number of spectrum converters and center stage switches. In this paper we evaluate blocking switching fabrics which uses much less spectrum converters and/or center stage switches. Evaluation is done using simulation and results show that it is sufficient to use few spectrum converters to reduce internal blocking probability to the level below 10
^-10
.