Design of a WDM optical packet switch for IP traffic

This paper addresses the design of an optical packet switch able to effectively cope with variable length packet traffic, such as IP traffic. A switching architecture equipped with a multistage fiber delay line buffer is presented, that is able to realize fine time granularity and long delay. WDM is introduced to solve switch internal blocking and to enhance buffer exploitation. Packet loss performance, evaluated by simulation, is discussed in relation to the degrees of freedom available for switch design, to show the feasibility of a switch for the IP environment