High Capacity Optical Interconnects for Computer Networks

As the system interconnect migrates to higher speeds, interconnect designers are considering optical interconnects as a solution enabling higher aggregate bit rate and lower power consumption. For short link length interconnects requirements are quite different to those for long distance telecommunications systems. In order to achieve ultra high capacity and low latency, optical switching fabrics are also considered. The optical switch, however, brings significant changes to the interconnect architecture in terms of how routing decisions are made and how contention resolution is managed