Performance Evaluation of a New Photonic ATM Switching Architecture Based on WDM

. . : A new gigabit ATM photonic switching architecture is here presented and first experimental results are reported. The matrix is based on wavelength encoding of cells and on the broadcast-and-select principle for routing. A suitable management of fibre delay lines allows alloptical output queueing inside each switching element. These output buffered switching elements are then interconnected in a multi-stage Clos architecture and different design options are discussed in order to achieve a terabit capacity and simultaneously meet the ATM switching requirements. In particular, the feasibility of interstage flow control is proved and its benefits on system performance evaluated. 1. INTRODUCTION The capacity of future telecommunication networks will have to be increased so as to meet the emerging needs of the customers in terms of bandwidth. ATM has been identified as the standard switching technique for the broadband network. In this environment an optical ATM switching architectu..