Hiroyuki UENOHARA^1,2,*, Takeshi SEKI¹ and Kohroh KOBAYASHI¹

¹Microsystem Research Center, Precision and Intelligence Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 226-8503, Japan
²Japan Science and Technology Agency, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, 1-32-12 Higashi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0011, Japan

(Received November 21, 2003; Accepted January 28, 2004)

We describe a novel type of an optical packet switch with an optical header processor based on optical signal processing and wavelength routing architecture. It consists of an optical digital-to-analog conversion-type header processor, wavelength selection portion with an electrically tunable laser, a wavelength converter based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), and wavelength routing by use of an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), which is called a wavelength label switch (WLS). Wavelength switching of an electrically tunable laser, and wavelength conversion were successfully achieved within a few nanoseconds after recognition of an optical header using a two-bit optical header processor and a FPGA-based wavelength table. High-speed transfer performance of less than a few tens of nanoseconds and BER of less than 10^-10 were verified in the wavelength routing operation among three assigned wavelengths.

Key words: optical packet switch, optical digital-to-analog converter, header processor, tunable laser, wavelength converter, wavelength routing

^*E-mail address: uenohara@ms.pi.titech.ac.jp