All-optical packet header processor based on cascaded SOA-MZIs

A novel scheme for all-optical packet header processing is proposed. The highly scalable photonic-integrated architecture is comprised of cascaded SOA-based Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The simulation results show its feasibility to recognise bit patterns at 10 Gbit/s and beyond. The maximum number of header bits that can be alloptically processed is dependent on the ASE noise, but the approach is still valid for all-optical label swapping networks.