Sharing of Fixed Wavelength Converters in All Optical Packet Switch

This paper addresses the performance of fixed wavelength converters (FWCs) in resolving optical packet contentions. In order to realize an acceptable packet loss performance, a structure called AFWC (Array of Fixed Wavelength Converters) is proposed. The function of an AFWC is similar to that of a group of tunable wavelength converters, however, it can be shared among all input wavelength channels. The performances of an optical packet switch with AFWCs are evaluated by simulation experiments.