The remarkable achievements in the area of integrated optical memories and optical random access memories (RAMs) together with the rapid adoption of optical interconnects in the Datacom and Computercom industries introduce a new perspective for information storage directly in the optical domain, enabling fast access times, increased bandwidth and transparent cooperation with optical interconnect lines. This article reviews state-of-the-art integrated optical memory technologies and optical RAM cell demonstrations describing the physical mechanisms of several key devices along with their performance metrics in terms of their energy, speed and footprint. Novel applications are outlined, concluding with the scaling challenges to be addressed toward allowing light to serve as both a data-carrying and data-storage medium.
We demonstrate a novel Medium-Transparent MAC (MT-MAC) protocol with enhanced end-user service delivery fairness properties for use in Gbps capable, 60 GHz Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) LAN networks. Our approach relies on incorporating a Client Weighted Algorithm (CWA) in the optical capacity allocation mechanism employed in the MT-MAC scheme, so as to distribute the available wavelengths to the different antenna units according to the total number of active users served by each individual antenna. The protocol's throughput fairness characteristics are confirmed through extensive simulations for different end-user's distributions, vaying traffic loads and multiple optical wavelength availabilities at 1 Gbps data rates. The presented results shoe that complete throughput and delay equalization can be achieved even for highly varying user population patterns among the different antenna units when certain wavelength availability conditions are satisfied. The performance of the proposed protocol has been compared with respective results obtained by the state-of-art MT-MAC scheme where a round-robin arbitration algorithm is used, clearly confirming the increased fairness capabilities of our approach. In addition, the proposed scheme is simple amd remains clearly distinct from the wireless capacity arbitration process, highlighting in this way the high-level agility and flexibility of the MT-MAC platform for use in high-speed 60 Ghz FiWi LANs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
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