Energy-Efficient Switching in Optical Interconnection Networks

Interconnection networks currently used in backbone routers, high performance computing systems, and large data storage systems are based on electronic switching fabrics. Due to the ever increasing amount of data to store and process, these solutions are approaching their fundamental limitations in terms of wiring density, throughput, and power consumption. Optical interconnection networks are a viable solution to cope with such compelling issues. However the architecture must be designed and optimized in order to achieve high throughput at low power consumption. The paper will overview different SOA-based implementations of the space switches required in both single plane and multi plane optical interconnection networks. The objective is to identify the most suitable implementation in terms of number of SOAs needed, scalability and power consumption, when considering today's available technologies.