Asynchronous transfer mode architecture using photonic devices

Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is becoming a very widely used scheme in data transfer. The success of this scheme remains the main motivation for researchers in the area to improve the efficiency of the technique and to adopt new technologies in order to offer better performance with higher bandwidth. The authors investigate the design of an ATM architecture using pure photonic devices. The architecture is all-optical in order to take advantage of the inherent optical devices´ features. The photonic devices used in this design are well established in the optical technology and they are proven to be efficient, low-power consumption and commercially available. Besides, it is a flexible architecture that can be interfaced as a switching element to all types of communication systems including multistage interconnection networks