Fiber-optic bus-oriented single-hop interconnections among multi-transceiver stations

The single-path selective-broadcast interconnection (SBI) is a static, passive interconnection among a set of stations, each equipped with multiple c transmitters and receivers. It uses c ² buses, each interconnecting a subset of the stations, and provides a single common bus to any two stations. The author explores those merits of this SBI which are related directly to its implementation in fiber optics. When compared with c buses, each interconnecting all stations, the SBI is shown to offer substantial advantages in power budget and the maximum number of stations that can be interconnected without repeaters or amplifiers. It is also attractive in terms of the required passive fiber optic components such as fiber segments and star couplers. For a fixed power budget and direct detection, the capacity of this SBI is shown to be highest among bus-oriented single-hop interconnections for both a uniform traffic pattern and the worst-case unknown skew