On fast algorithms for TDM switching assignments in terrestrial andsatellite networks

Bipartite graph and network circulation formulations of the TDM switching assignment problem are compared; a correct proof is given of the existence of a feasible circulation in the network model corresponding to a valid switching assignment. Dividing users into groups, an O(K⁴) algorithm for solving the assignment problem is described where K is the number of TDM lines, and a bound is derived on the number of switching configurations     

Optical versus electronic switching for broadband networks

The authors compare the use of electronic and optical switching for broadband networks. Their technological merits and their ability to meet traffic demand when multimedia communications become ubiquitous are considered. The authors conclude that electronic ATM switches are adequate and commercially mature for local access. An ATM-mesh switch with multihop routing can be used to achieve capacity of several hundreds of gigabits per second. Beyond access, the authors argue that traffic aggregation may allow switching to be performed on much longer time scales than that of ATM cells. Wavelength and mechanical fiber switching may be used economically for trunk switching, avoiding the expensive processes of optoelectronic conversions and demultiplexing     

Blocking performance of time switching in TDM wavelength routing networks

Advances in optical WDM technology have paved the way for high-capacity wavelength channels capable of carrying information at Gb/s rates. However, with current traffic streams requiring only a fraction of a wavelength’s bandwidth, it becomes necessary to groom these independent low rate traffic streams on to higher capacity wavelength channels. An all-optical approach to grooming is to allow many connections to time-share a wavelength. Accordingly, in a TDM wavelength routing network, the establishment of a connection requires the assignment of time slots in addition to routing and wavelength assignment. One of the primary challenges in such networks is the need for quick reconfiguration at the routing nodes. In this paper, we investigate the effects of switch reconfigurability, wavelength conversion and time slot interchangers (TSIs) on the blocking performance of connections with multiple rates. Heuristics for time slot assignment that consider constraints imposed by six different node architectures are proposed, and the blocking performance of the TDM wavelength routing network is evaluated through simulations. Results indicate that limited reconfigurability at the nodes is sufficient to attain the performance obtained with full reconfigurability, especially when connections occupy only a small fraction of the wavelength capacity. Furthermore, the blocking performance is not seen to benefit significantly with the introduction of wavelength converters and TSIs, thus signifying that the improvement in blocking is largely dependent on the switch reconfigurability at the nodes.     

Optical signal processing for optical packet switching networks

Optical packet switching promises to bring the flexibility and efficiency of the Internet to transparent optical networking with bit rates extending beyond that currently available with electronic router technologies. New optical signal processing techniques have been demonstrated that enable routing at bit rates from 10 Gb/s to beyond 40 Gb/s. We review these signal processing techniques and how all-optical-wavelength converter technology can be used to implement packet switching functions. Specific approaches that utilize-ultra-fast all-optical nonlinear fiber wavelength converters and monolithically integrated optical wavelength converters are discussed and research results presented.     

New architectures for optical TDM switching

A systematic theoretical study of architectures for optical TDM switching, using lithium niobate optical switches and optical fiber delay lines for storage, is undertaken. The architectures allow the bit rate and wavelength transparency of these devices to be exploited. A technique involving recursive definition and proof is used to define the networks, which are mathematically related to Benes and Waksman networks. This produces architectures that are very different from existing optical TDM networks. They exhibit economical use of components, which reaches the theoretical minimum in some cases. The use of feed-forward rather than feed-back delays give these networks superior crosstalk performance and more uniform attenuation than existing designs.<>     

An architecture for frame integrity optical TDM switching

An architecture for optical time-division-multiplexing (TDM) switching which makes more efficient use of hardware is presented. The number of switches used is very close to the theoretical minimum. Lithium niobate switches, with fiber delay lines for storage, are used throughout, and the architecture allows the bit rate and wavelength transparency of these devices to be exploited. The networks are mathematically equivalent to Benes and Waksman networks, and they are constructed using recursive definitions which are justified mathematically. The use of `feedforward' rather than `feedback' delays produces superior crosstalk performance and more uniform attenuation than existing designs. The networks may be dilated in a similar way to dilated Benes networks, yielding vastly improved crosstalk performance at the expense of using roughly twice as many switches     

Survey of switching techniques in high-speed networks and their performance

One of the most promising approaches for high speed networks for integrated service applications is fast packet switching, or ATM (asynchronous transfer mode). ATM can be characterized by very high speed transmission links and simple, hard-wired protocols within a network. To match the transmission speed of the network links, and to minimize the overhead due to the processing of network protocols, the switching of cells is done in hardware switching fabrics in ATM networks. A number of designs have been proposed for implementing ATM switches. Although many differences exist among the proposals, the vast majority of them are based on self-routeing multistage interconnection networks. This is because of the desirable features of multi-stage interconnection networks such as self-routeing capability and suitability for VLSI implementation. Existing ATM switch architectures can be classified into two major classes: blocking switches, where blockings of cells may occur within a switch when more than one cell contends for the same internal link, and non-blocking switches, where no internal blocking occurs. A large number of techniques have also been proposed to improve the performance of blocking and non-blocking switches. In this paper, we present an extensive survey of the existing proposals for ATM switch architectures, focusing on their performance issues.     

Optical switching speed requirements for terabit/second packet overWDM networks

Optical dynamics requirement for packet-over-WDM networks is analyzed. Optimization among optical switching speed, global resource availability, and local queuing considerations is performed, yielding multiterabit/second throughput capability by employing submicrosecond switching technology     

All-Optical Network Consortium-ultrafast TDM networks

We describe recent results of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) sponsored Consortium on Wideband All-Optical Networks which is developing architectures, technology components, and applications for ultrafast 100 Gb/s time-division multiplexing (TDM) optical networks. The shared-media ultrafast networks we envision are appropriate for providing low-access-delay bandwidth on demand to both future high-burst rate (100 Gb/s) users as well aggregates of lower-rate users (i.e., a heterogeneous user population). To realize these goals we are developing ultrafast network architectures such as HLAN, described here, that operate well in high-latency environments and require only limited processing capability at the ultrafast bit rates. We also describe results on 80-Gb/s, 90-km soliton transmission, 100-Gb/s soliton compression laser source technology, picosecond short-pulse fiber ring lasers, picosecond-accuracy optical bit-phase sensing and clock recovery, all-optical injection-locked fiber figure-eight laser clock recovery, short-pulse fiber loop storage, and all-optical pulse width and wavelength conversion     

Optimum fiber dispersion in high-speed TDM systems

Single-channel transmission at 40 Gb/s and above is investigated by numerical simulations with respect to optimal fiber dispersion. Since optimum dispersion depends on the bit rate nonzero dispersion shifted fiber is recommended for 40-Gb/s transmission and standard single-mode fiber for 160-Gb/s transmission     

Blocking in multiwavelength TDM networks

This paper examines the relative importance of wavelength conversion and time‐slot interchange in improving the performance of multiwavelength time‐division multiplexed networks. It is shown that, in networks with a small number of wavelengths, each carrying a large number of time‐division multiplexed channels, significant performance improvements are achieved by the introduction of time‐slot interchange alone, without wavelength conversion. However, some performance improvements are also achieved by the introduction of wavelength conversion alone. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Mini-slot TDM WDM optical networks

In recent years, optical transport networks have evolved from interconnected SONET/WDM ring networks to mesh-based optical WDM networks. Time-slot wavelength switching is to aggregate the lower rate traffic at the time-slot level into a wavelength in order to improve bandwidth utilization. With the advancement of fiber-optics technologies, continual increase of fiber bandwidth and number of wavelengths in each fiber, it is possible to divide a wavelength in a fiber into time-slots, and further divide a time-slot into mini-slots so that the fiber bandwidth can be more efficiently utilized. This article proposes a router architecture with an electronic system controller to support optical data transfer at the mini-slot(s) of a time-slot in a wavelength for each hop of a route. The proposed router architecture performs optical circuit switching and does not use any wavelength converter. Each node in the mini-slot TDM WDM optical network consists of the proposed router architecture. Three different network topologies are used to demonstrate the effectiveness and behavior of this type of network in terms of blocking probability and throughput.     

An Architecture for TSI-Free Nonblocking Optical TDM Switches

One of the key elements in building a time-division- multiplexed (TDM) switch is the time slot interchange (TSI). Given the current optical switching and buffer technologies, TSI-based TDM architectures have many implementation drawbacks, including severe signal attenuation. Some studies showed that some space-time equivalence diagrams can be converted into a delay-unit-based (TSI-free) TDM. This type of architecture is attractive for optical TDM switches, but the techniques discussed in those studies are for rearrangeable switches. Many applications require nonblocking switches where adding a new connection (or a flow) will not cause rearrangement of existing connections. In this paper, we present the design principle for building strictly nonblocking delay-unit-based (TSI-free) optical TDM switches.     

A circuit for high-speed time switching

A method of time switching for time-division communication systems is introduced. A compact shift register-based circuit is used for this purpose in order to achieve high-speed switching     

Improved TDM switching assignments for variable and fixed burst length

In this paper we present two algorithms for improved satellite‐switched TDM slot assignments of N × N traffic matrices under K transponders/carriers (simultaneous connections), 1?K?N. The first algorithm applies to data switching with variable burst length and achieves optimum transmission time with a significantly lower number of switching configurations than a previously proposed algorithm, while still having the same time complexity (O(N⁴)). Experimental results demonstrate the advantage. The second algorithm applies to the case of fixed burst length and offers a faster complexity of O(L·N²), where L is the minimum transmission time, at the cost of occasionally missing the minimum. Extensive simulations indicate that the difference from the minimum is rare and is at most one. They also show that the presented algorithm even improves a previous one which was proposed for the fixed burst length case and has the same time complexity but uses K=N. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

自适应TDM/WDM光网络结构

WDM(波分复用)技术极大地利用了光纤的巨大带宽潜力，为此介绍了一种运用WDM技术的光网络结构，其中心局之间通过光交换设备的控制进行自适应的时分交换，同一中心局内的光交换机之间通过预约的时分复用共享所有可用波长，IP(因特网协议)数据包可以直接在该网络中透明传输。该网络结构具有组网灵活，带宽利用率高，扩容性好以及路由方法简单的优点。     

Neural networks for switching

The author argues that a strong impetus for using neural networks is that they provide a framework for designing massively parallel machines. He notes that the highly interconnected architecture of switching networks suggests similarities to neural networks. He presents two switching applications in which neural networks can solve the problems efficiently. He shows that a computational advantage can be gained by using nonuniform time delays in the network     

A shift register architecture for high-speed data sorting

This paper presents a shift-register architecture or SRA, for data sorting applications. The operations performed by the proposed architecture are (1)shift right, (2)shift left, (3)load, and (4)initialize. Sorting operations, such as insert and delete, can be realized by the combination of these 4 basic operations. The architecture is very regular and mainly composed of two basic cells,sort-cell and compare-cell. The latter is designed to generate control signals orchestrating the operation of sort cells which contain the sorted input sequences. Experimental results show that a single chip solution can achieve real-time performance based on 1.2m CMOS double-metal technology.Work support by the National Science Council of Taiwan, ROC under grant NSC82-0404-E009-184.     

Optical packet switching in core networks: between vision andreality

The research on optical packet switching (OPS) has witnessed considerable progress in the 1990s. We examine the future potential of OPS in the core network by discussing this switching approach and the current status of a number of its enabling technologies. Many of these technologies are still in the stage of research and experimentation. We see that optical packet switching may be deployed in the long-term future subject to satisfaction of three main conditions/developments. First, additional technological developments have to take place to overcome remaining implementation challenges while making OPS cost-effective to deploy. Second, a rational migration scenario of the network toward gradual deployment of packet-based optical switching approaches should exist. Finally, carriers have to become more interested in packet-based optical switching solutions