Survivable Optical Networks

Hussein T. Mouftah
Canada Research Chair and Distinguished University Professor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5
mouftah@uottawa.ca

January 2018 1
 Optical Switch Architectures

• Part 1: Multistage Interconnection

Networks
• Part 2: Electrooptic photonic switches
• Part 3: Guided-Wave-Based Switching
Network Architectures, and Laser-Diode-
Based Switching Networks

January 2018 2
 Part 1: Multistage
Interconnection Networks

January 2018 3
 Multistage Interconnection
Networks
• Blocking Single Path Networks
• Packet Loss in Banyan Networks
• Multiple Path Networks
• Deflection Routing
• Bridged Shuffle Exchange Networks

January 2018 4
 Blocking Single Path Networks

- Distributed control
- Low complexity (N Iog N)
- Incremental growth possible with statistical loss
- Internally blocking

January 2018 5
 Packet Loss in Banyan Network

Internal
Conflict

January 2018 6
 Multiple Path Networks

• Centralized/Distributed control
• High complexity N(logN)2
• Incremental growth difficult
(synchronization)

January 2018 7
 Deflection Routing

Blue cell reaches its destination after the 6th stage

• Distributed control
• No internal buffers
• Inefficient algorithm
January 2018 8
 Bridged Shuffle Exchange
Network

Blue cell reaches its destination after the 4th stage

• Distributed control
• Low complexity O(NlogN)
• Incremental growth possible
January 2018 9
 Dual Bridged Shuffle Exchange
Network

• Requires enhanced routing algorithm

• Uses two bridges per SE
• Has a lower number of stages

January 2018 10
 Part 2: Electrooptic photonic
switches

January 2018 11
 Electrooptic photonic switches
• The first optical switches to attract widespread
attention arose from studies of integrated optics
and utilized materials such as lithium niobate in
a four port structure.
• The structure employed was that of a directional
coupler switched by means of the electrooptic
effect.
• Structures that employ the electrooptic effect
include
– Directional couplers
– Interferometers
January 2018 12
 Guided-Wave-Based Switching
Networks
• Crossbar
• Planar
• Clos and Beneš
• Tree-Type
• Comparison of Architectures

January 2018 13
 Directional couplers

• A directional coupler is an electrooptic

device that can be used as a 2 x 2
photonic switch.
• The coupler can be treated as a device
that can be in one of two states. These
states are illustrated below

January 2018 14
 Directional coupler states

January 2018 15
 States of a directional coupler
• The directional coupler can be in one of
two states
• The first state is referred to as the cross-
state. In this state the signal on each input
channel is transferred to the opposite
output channel.
• The second state is referred to as the bar
state. In this state no directional reversal is
carried out.
January 2018 16
 Physical layout
• Physically, a directional coupler is a device
in which two waveguides are brought
close together to allow the energy from
one to be coupled to the other
LITHIUM NIOBATE SUBSTRATE

ELECTRODES

OPTICAL WAVEGUIDES

January 2018 17
 Operation
• The coupling region is of length L and the two
waveguides are separated by a distance d.
• Electrodes are placed over the waveguide where
coupling occurs. The electrodes are separated from the
waveguide by a thin buffering layer, typically silicon
dioxide (SiO2).
• A waveguide can be created in a material by making a
channel of material whose refraction index is higher than
that of the surrounding medium.
• By carefully selecting the refractive indices (of guide and
surrounding material) and the waveguide dimension d
single mode operation can be ensured at the required
operating wavelength.

January 2018 18
 Transfer of energy (the Cross-
State)
• The coupling mechanism is illustrated

• Two waveguides, composed of Titanium diffused into LiNbO3 run close to each other
for the distance d.
• When two waveguides are placed close to each other, the optical energy in one
waveguide can couple to the other.
• This coupling of light occurs because of the evanescent fields of the two waveguides.
• Depending on the propagation constants along the waveguides, a length l can be
defined after which all the energy in one waveguide has been coupled to the other.
• By arranging for the ratio L/l to be odd, Cross-State switching is achieved without any
applied voltage. In the previous Fig, the ratio L/l is 5.
January 2018 19
 Transfer of energy (the Cross-
State)
• The directional coupler can be forced to go from
the cross state to the bar state by applying an
electric field achieved through powering the
electrodes.
OUTPUT
LIGHT

TITANIUM
DIFFUSED
WAVEGUIDES

• The electric field acts to change the refractive

index (Electrooptic effect) and hence the
propagation constants of the waveguides.
January 2018 20
 Practical considerations

• Integrated directional coupler devices can have a length

anywhere between 1 mm to 1cm and a width of about
10-20 m, a length to breadth ratio of 100-1000.
• The electrodes are also long and require 5 to 20 volts to
induce switching. Hence the device exhibits a large
capacitance to the electrical drive circuit and the switch
reset time is limited by the electrical considerations.
• Typically 1 ns switching speed is realized although some
structures can be considerably faster.
• Currently arrays up to 8x8 can be made on one
substrate

January 2018 21
 Limitations

• The main limitations of directional coupler

switches are insertion loss and crosstalk.
• Reasonable figures can be achieved with
attenuation through a 1x16 array of about 7.5 dB
and interchannel crosstalk at 27 dB.
• Another limitation relates to drive and switching.
The drive voltage needed is in the order of 5 to
20 volts and has to be switched within
nanoseconds.
January 2018 22
 Electrooptic Effect
• The electrooptic effect is the refractive index change with the electric
field
– Linear electrooptic effect (Pockels effect),
– Kerr effect.

• where:
– n is index change
– n is the index of refraction
– r is the electrooptic coefficient
– V is the applied voltage
– d is the gap between the electrode plates
–  is the optical-electrical field overlap parameter

January 2018 23
 Coupling in a directional coupler

L is the interaction length / is the

coupling length
• Propagation constant:
• where:
– n is the index of refraction, and
–  is the free-space optical wavelength
• Phase change:
January 2018 24
 Insertion loss and its sources
• worst-case loss, Bending loss
Splitting loss Coupler insertion loss dB)
• differential loss. (3dB) (0.5 dB) (0.5 dB)

• IL[dB]=Pin[dB]-Pout[dB]

Crossover loss Propagation loss

Fiber-to-waveguide
(0.3 dB) (0.2 dB/cm)
coupling loss
January 2018 (1.5 dB) 25
 Extinction Ratio

• Pout is the output signal power

• Pn is the noise

January 2018 26
 Signal-to-Noise Ratio

• SNR = Pout(i) - Pn(i)

• Pout(i) is the output signal power at output i
• Pn(i) is the total noise power appearing at
output (i)

January 2018 27
 Guided-wave-based switching
network characteristics
• loss,
• crosstalk,
• number of waveguide crossovers,
• number of substrates,
• number of optical fibers,
• blocking properties, possibility of multicasting,
• number of switching elements,
• number of drivers and voltage requirements,
• control complexity,
• switching speed,
• bandwidth,
• parameter stability,
• reliability, testability, and maintainability,
• modularity and growability,
• mass manufacturability,
• overall cost.

January 2018 28
 Part 3: Guided-Wave-Based
Switching Network Architectures,
and
Laser-Diode-Based Switching
Networks

29
January 2018
 Outline
1. Guided-wave-based network
architectures
• Crossbar
• Planar
• Clos and Beneš architectures
• Tree-type
• Comparison of architectures
2. Laser-diode-based switching networks
January 2018 30
 Planar network

Planar network with

concentration
Clos network

January 2018 31
 Beneš network

Dilated Beneš network

January 2018 32
 Conventional tree architecture

January 2018 33
 Wavelength Division Multiplexing

• Overview of WDM Architectures

• Wavelength Routing Networks
• Broadcast-and-Select Networks
• Multihop Networks
• Wavelength Switching
• Wavelength Conversion

January 2018 34
 Overview of WDM Architectures
• The two general architectural forms that have been most
generally used in WDM networks are
– Wavelength routing networks and
– Broadcast-and-select networks.
• Wavelength routing networks are composed of one or
more wavelength-selective elements and have the
property that the path that the signal takes through the
network is uniquely determined by the wavelength of the
signal and the port through which it enters the network.
• In broadcast-and-select networks, all the inputs are
combined in a star coupler and broadcast to all outputs.

January 2018 35
 Wavelength Routing Networks

• The path that the signal takes through the

network is uniquely determined by the
wavelength of the signal and the port through
which it enters the network
January 2018 36
 Wavelength routing networks
• An NxN network is shown in which N tunable laser sources are interconnected with N
wavelength independent receivers.

• By tuning to a selected wavelength, the signal from a selected laser can be routed to
a selected output port on the network
• Since there are N inputs and N outputs, one may be tempted to think that N2
wavelengths are required to complete the interconnections.
• It turns out that it can always be arranged so that with only N wavelengths, N inputs
and N outputs can be completely interconnected in a non interfering way.
• However, in this case N2 interconnections are still needed.
• An example is shown next.
January 2018 37
 Example: Wavelength routing
networks
• An example of this is shown which is drawn for a 4 x 4 network.

OUTPUT
INPUT
R1 R2 R3 R4

SI 0 1 2 3

S2 1 0 3 2

S3 2 3 0 1

S4 3 2 1 0

• For example, the wavelength to go from port SI to output port R3 is %2. This is
extendible to any size network with just N wavelengths but it does require N2
interconnections.
• It is possible to address each output port uniquely by choice of X.
• No output port can receive any given wavelength from more than one input
(source).

January 2018 38
 Broadcast-and-Select Network

UNIQUE TUNABLE
BROADCAST STAR
WAVELENGTH RECEIVERS
LASERS

• Example of a broadcast-and-select
network with fixed-wavelength lasers and
tunable receivers
January 2018 39
 Broadcast-and-select (BaS) network

BaS Architectures
• Several variations exist depending on whether the input lasers, the output receivers
or both are tunable.
• These possible configurations are explored in turn below.
– Tunable lasers, fixed tuned receivers: If the input lasers are tunable and the output receivers
are tuned to fixed wavelengths, the architecture is basically a space-division switch in
function.
– Tunable receivers, fixed lasers: This architecture can support multicast connections. This
can be achieved by arranging to have more than one receiver tuned to the source
wavelength at the same time.
– Tunable lasers and receivers: This architecture is more costly and more versatile. The
possibility exists for using less than N wavelengths, but with the result that there are not
enough wavelengths to support simultaneous NxN interconnections.
• It is obvious that the above network types may be combined with each other and with
more traditional space division photonic switching to generate a very broad range of
network
January 2018 architectures. 40
 Star coupler
Combiner & splitter

January 2018 41
 Multihop Lightwave network

Shufflenet connectivity graph

January 2018 42
 Wavelength Switching
• In addition to the broadcast-and-select and the
wavelength routing configurations discussed, wavelength
switching is also a possible configuration. There are two
types of switching possible.
• Wavelength conversion
– Wavelength conversion deals with switching where routing is
done by converting the signal from one wavelength to another.
– Wavelength conversion can also be used in wavelength-based
interconnection gateways between local area networks and as a
methodology for contention resolution.
• Wavelength space-division switching
– wavelength space-division switching, is one which will select an
arbitrary set of wavelengths, 1.......  N, on one fiber and directs
them to another fiber.

January 2018 43
 Wavelength conversion
• In all-optical networks, wavelength conversion (also known as wavelength
translation) is viewed as an important capability for enabling scalability and
improving the performance
• In high capacity, dynamic WDM networks, blocking due to wavelength
contention can be reduced by wavelength conversion.
• Wavelength conversion addresses a number of key issues in WDM
networks including transparency, interoperability and network capacity.
• Among numerous wavelength conversion techniques reported to date, only
a few techniques offer strict transparency.
• The major wavelength conversion technologies of interest include
– Optoelectronic conversion: This is the most straight forward wavelength
conversion technique. It consists of an optical receiver that detects the input
optical signal converting it into electronic form (O/E) and a transmitter that
generates an output optical signal at a compliant wavelength (E/0).
– Optical Gating Wavelength Conversion: This type of wavelength converter
employs a device that changes its characteristics depending on the intensity of
the applied input signal.
– Wave-Mixing Wavelength Converters: Wave-mixing arises from a nonlinear
optical response of a medium when more than one signal is present.

January 2018 44
 Optical gating wavelength
conversion
• This type of wavelength converter employs a device that
changes its characteristics depending on the intensity of
the applied input signal.
• This change is in sympathy with the data and influences
a continuous wave optical signal called the probe.
• The information is therefore mapped to the probe and
the probe is at a different wavelength.
• Thus wavelength conversion is achieved.

January 2018 45
 Wave-mixing wavelength
converters
• Wave-mixing arises from a nonlinear optical response of a medium when
more than one signal is present.
• The outcome of wave mixing is the generation of another wave whose
intensity is proportional to the product of the interacting wave intensifies.
• The phase and frequency of the generated wave is a linear combination of
those of the interacting waves.

• Therefore wave mixing preserves both the amplitude and phase information
• This is the only category of wavelength conversion that offers strict
transparency.
• It is also the only method that allows simultaneous conversion of a set of
multiple input wavelengths to a set of multiple output wavelengths.
• This method can accommodate signals with extremely high bit rates
exceeding 100 Gbit/s as was demonstrated in experiments.
January 2018 46
 Optical Memories and Time
Division Switching
• Fiber Line Delay
• Programmable Fiber Line Delay
• Optical Time Slot Interchanger
• Fixed-Delay Time Division Switching
• Variable-Delay Time Division Switching

January 2018 47
 Optical buffer implementations, (a) Fiber delay line, (b) Programmable fiber delay line,
(c) Feed-forward time slot inter-changer. (d) Active switched recirculating delay line.

January 2018 48
 Photonic implementation of a TSI. Time-division switching.

January 2018 49
 TSI using variable-length fiber-delay lines.

January 2018 50
 Wavelength interchanger.

January 2018 51
 Fixed-delay-type time Shift-register-type time switch
switch

Time switch with recirculation delay lines

January 2018 52
 Self-Routing in Photonic Packet
Switching
• Electronic Header Processing Optical
Header Processing

block diagram for 1x2 self-routing switch demonstrations.

January 2018 53
 (b)

(a)

(c)

(d)
Photonic switch fabrics used in experimental
demonstrations, (a) Mach-Zehnder
interferometer (b) Semiconductor laser amplifier
(SLA) gate, (c) Y-branch with SLA. (d)
(e)
January 2018 Directional SLA gate array tree switch. 54
 Self-routing with optical processing architecture.

Self-routing with optical processing architecture.

4x4 self-routing switch using planar fabrics.

January 2018 55
 Spread Spectrum Code-Division
Switch
Optical Routing Controller

January 2018 56