Abstract

Very high-speed packet networks will be required in the near future to efficiently integrate data, video, and voice into a common telecom-munications fabric. Many existing and proposed packet networks fail to take advantage of the multigigabit bandwidths provided by optical fiber and semiconductor optoelectronics. Much of the disparity between the data transfer rate of traditional packet networks (≤1 Gbit/s) and the link transmission rates for conventional lightwave systems (as high as 10 Gbit/s) lies in the amount of electronic processing that occurs at each node. A number of methods have been suggested to overcome this bottleneck. Many of these solutions rely on providing optical connectivity through the network without full optical-to-electronic (OE) and electronic-to-optical (EO) conversion of the packet at each node.

© 1992 Optical Society of America