Software-defined control-plane for wavelength selective unicast and multicast of optical data in a silicon photonic platform

Abstract

We demonstrate a programmable control-plane based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) with a power-efficient algorithm for optical unicast, multicast, and broadcast functionalities in a silicon photonic platform. The platform includes a silicon photonic 1×8 microring array chip which in conjunction with a fast tunable laser over the C-band is capable of delivering software controlled wavelength selective functionality on top of spatial switching. We characterize the thermo-optic response of microring resonators and extract key parameters necessary for the development of the control-plane. The performance of the proposed architecture is tested with 10 Gb/s on-off keying (OOK) optical data and error-free operation is verified for various wavelength and spatial switching scenarios. Lastly, we evaluate electrical power and energy consumption required to reconfigure the silicon photonic device for all possible wavelength operations and output ports combinations and show that unicast, multicast of two, three, four, five, six, seven, and broadcast functions are achieved with energy overheads of 0.02, 0.07, 0.18, 0.49, 0.76, 1.01, 1.3, and 1.55 pJ/bit, respectively.

A Silicon Photonic Switching Platform for Flexible Converged Centralized-Radio Access Networking

“…The exploitation of this functionality can only be achieved through precise tuning of the thermo-optic MRRs which must be incorporated higher layer electronic control. We have previously demonstrated multi-casting functionality on up to 3 output ports of a SiP MRR based switch enabled by the development of a scalable software defined control plane [31]. For the experimental work described here, optical multicasting provides the option of splitting a wavelength channel between two C-RAN fronthaul links.…”

“…The figure shows that when the switch fabric is configured for optical multi-cast operation, very similar performances are observed across each received GFDM band, for both C-RAN fronthaul links. This uniformity in performance across both links is achieved by precise control of MRRs' overlapping pass-bands [31], relative to the input wavelength, such that equal optical power is dropped at the output ports 1 and 4 -effectively equalizing optical power differentials which are due to variations in optical path losses between the chosen the SiP switch routes.…”

Layout optimization methodology for ring-based on-chip optical network

“…The on-chip network serves the communication of cores or processing units. The building of a network should fully consider performance requirements, power constraints and area limitations [1]. The structure of the optical on-chip network can be divided into two categories: one is based on routers, and the other is based on switching fabric(s).…”

All-Optical Wavelength Multicasting in Quadruple Resonance-Split Coupled Silicon Microring Cavity

“…Wavelength multicasting is an essential functionality in optical networks that facilitates efficient and simultaneous routing of information from a single source to desired multiple recipients [1][2][3]. It involves replicating an input optical signal onto many different wavelengths and hence enabling data to be simultaneously forwarded to more than one recipient.…”