Performance Study of a Time Slot Interchanger Based on a MZI-SOA in the Switch Configuration

In this paper we assess the performance of a MZI-SOA based time slot interchanger (TSI). The MZI-SOA operates as a switch that selects the amount of delay to be introduced in the signal at each TSI stage. We analytically calculate the power penalty of the time slot interchanger considering the crosstalk and amplified spontaneous emission noise generated at each MZI-SOA switch. We compare two TSI configurations, one that uses less MZI-SOA switches, and a second that uses one extra switch but significantly reduces crosstalk, which is found to be the main impairment. The results show that power penalties lower than 2.8 dB could be obtained for the 3 stages TSI, for the configuration with one extra switch and an alpha-factor of 6.