A Hybrid Optoelectronic Router and Enabling InP OEIC Technologies

Along with the explosive growth of data traffic, the power consumption of networks has dramatically increased over the past several years. In particular, the power consumption of large capacity routers has become a growing concern. In this paper, we review our work on developing a hybrid optoelectronic router for optical packet switched networks. The router is enabled by key InP optoelectronic integrated circuit, optical, and optoelectronic device and sub-system technologies. These technologies are combined with CMOS electronics in a novel router architecture to realize a low power, low latency packet switch capable of providing various network services (multicast, QoS, etc.). To conclude, we review the demonstration of a prototype hybrid optoelectronic router.