AWG-Based Shuffle-Exchange Optical-Interconnection Architectures

This paper studies the optical shuffle-exchange interconnection network based on Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs). It proposes implementations of the network suitable to be exploited in an optical backplane that interconnects line-cards of a high-performance switch or router. A procedure to design AWG interconnection stages with zero coherent crosstalk is presented and applied to the perfect-shuffle pattern, the building-block of the shuffle-exchange. The scalability of the proposed architecture is analyzed with a simple approach.