Hybrid optoelectronic packet switch with multiple wavelength conversion through an electronic packet switch

In this paper, we propose an optoelectronic switch that resolves contention in an optical switch through an electronic switch. The optoelectronic switch switches packets in the optical domain, and uses an electronic switch to store and forward packets that lose contention through other wavelengths. We investigate two modalities of the electronic switch, namely, local and global, and compare the performance of these modalities, in terms of packet loss rate. The simulation results show that the global modality achieves the lower packet loss rate. We also show that a small number of ports for wavelength conversion suffices to achieve a low packet loss rate with global modality.