Energy-efficient space-time optical interconnection architectures for data centers

This paper considers a space-time interconnection architecture (STIA) based on optical devices, and proposes its introduction in data center networks. The space switch used by STIA is assumed to be based on Benes architecture and realized with energy-proportional utilization of the semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). A STIA-based network is designed for data centers using folded Clos and butterfly topologies, and optimized for power efficiency. Results show that large size STIAs are an energy-efficient solution and allow a power reduction around an order of magnitude with respect to Ethernet.