Performance Evaluation of Asynchronous Multi-Fibre Optical Packet Switches

A multi-fibre switch is a switch with multiple fibre per interface. This property is here exploited to use the space domain for contention resolution in optical packet switches. This scheme allows to separate and possibly replicate the same wavelengths on the multiple fibres of an output interface to create isolated contention domains. The wavelength converters employed require a narrower band and are consequently easier to implement. Different policies to exploit the wavelength and time domains are also applied and evaluated by simulations and semi-analytical models in asynchronous context. The results suggest that the multi-fibre approach effectively increases switch performance and offers the chance of an optimized switch design in a joint performance and cost perspective.