Abstract
This paper compares the scalability and energy
consumption of switch fabrics for optical and electronic
packet switching. In particular,
arrayed-waveguide-grating (AWG)-based switches,
semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) gate arrays,
electro-optic phased-array switches, and
microresonator-based switches are compared with
state-of-the-art electronic switch fabrics. The analysis
includes the key contributors to energy consumption and
the scaling capabilities of each technology. To provide
a fair comparison, the analysis takes into account the
optical-to-electronic and electronic-to-optical
converters and the multiplexers and demultiplexers
needed in electronic packet switches. We show that
optical switch fabrics generally become more energy
efficient as the data rate increases, and AWG and
microresonator-based switches consume marginally less
energy than electronic switch fabrics at bit rates above
about 100 Gb/s. However, optical packet switches do not
appear to offer significant throughput improvements or
energy savings compared to electronic packet switches. A
key impediment to the scaling of optical switch fabrics
is the energy consumed in the electronic circuits that
drive the individual optical devices in the switch
fabric and the energy consumed by the network of control
lines that feed these electronic drivers. Ultimately,
the energy consumption of optical packet switches is
limited by the optical-to-electronic and
electronic-to-optical converters required for packet
header recognition and header replacement.
© 2011 IEEE
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