Contention resolution by shared wavelength converters and fiber delay lines in an optical packet switch

Contention resolution techniques greatly affect the architecture and peformance of an optical packet switch (OPS). Fiber delay lines (FDL) and wavelength converters which can resolve the contention problem and provide acceptable performance, have been demonstrated in many OPS designs. However, the large hardware volume of the optical components limits the integration and scalability of the OPS system. In this paper, we propose a design that can efficiently utilize the wavelength converters and use a very limited number of FDLs. The performance of the proposed design has been evaluated by simulation. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.