NSF Award
9661015
*** 9661015 Kane The This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will investigate a novel Tbit/sec, all-optical crossbar interconnect. The full potential of all-fiber networks is not fully exploited owing to the lack of high-bit-rate switches and interconnects; state-of-the-art electronic crossbars cannot accommodate bit rates higher that several hundred Mbit/sec. Commerciallyavailable all-optical interconnects (capable of handling high bit rates) exhibit slow reconfiguration speeds, are not easily scaled to route large numbers of input signals, and are often fragile and sensitive to environmental disturbances. Reveo has invented a unique polarization-based all-optical interconnect which overcomes the limitations of existing technology, and features Tbit/sec capacity, fast (microsecond to nanosecond) reconfiguration speed, ultra-broad spectral bandwidth, low insertion loss, low crosstalk, robust all-solid-state construction, low power consumption, and simple scaleability. This crossbar interconnect utilizes powerful network architectures, including Benes, shuffle-exchange, omega, PM2I, and Reveo's PM2K design. Our unique hardware arrangement will allow for the development and commercialization of crossbar switches which can be operated in any wavelength regime. Phase I research will focus on proof of concept, and characterization of a small crossbar device. In Phase II we will develop materials for the interconnect optics, and will develop larger (8X8) switches. Phase III will focus on commercialization and manufacturing of this novel technology. The proposed technology will have immediate applications in telecommunications, networking, and back-plane interconnections, as this crossbar interconnect will be compatible with the existing telecommunications infrastructure. It has been estimated that the market for optical interconnects will continue to grow at an annual rate of 29% per year through 1998, and 23% per year from 1998-2003 (Laser Focus World, 1994). ***
