A class of self-routing strictly nonblocking photonic switching networks

Abstract

Nonblocking interconnection networks are always favored to be used as switching networks whenever possible. The crosstalk-free requirement in photonic networks adds a new dimension of constraints for nonblockingness. Routing algorithms play a fundamental role in nonblocking networks, and any algorithm that requires more than linear time would be considered too slow for real-time applications. One remedy is to use multiple processors to route connections in parallel and the other is to construct cost effective self-routing nonblocking networks. We propose a new class of self-routing strictly nonblocking networks by studying the connection capacity of banyan-type networks. Compared with existing strictly nonblocking self-routing networks, the presented new networks have lower hardware cost, shorter connection diameter, and much smaller number of required wavelengths. Consequently, they are more feasible for implementation with reduced optical signal attenuation and crosstalk.