A large ATM switch based on memory switches and optical star couplers

A large ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) switch architecture based on memory switches, of the type being developed by several research groups, and on optical star couplers is proposed. Fast contention resolution makes it possible to combine a number of these modules, memory switches and optical stars, in order to attain a capacity of 2.5 Tb/s. This switch architecture has a relatively small failure group size of 128 STS-3 lines out of a total of 16384. Failure recovery procedures are proposed for all of the components of the system. A detailed discussion of current technology for the optical interconnect is given