Optical Interconnections based on Microring Resonators

Projecte fet en col.laboració amb la Facoltà di Ingegneria dell’Informazione. Politecinco de TorinoThe aim of this thesis is to present and analyse optical interconnection architectures based on microring resonators. The trend of meeting large bandwidth and strict latency requirements in both global on-chip and off-chip communication face critical challenges in maintaining a sustainable performance-per-watt. Optical technologies support the immense bandwidth allowed by wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) while could offer a significant power saving switching capabilities. Microring resonators have received considerable attention as promising technologies for realizing photonic integrated circuits. Their small footprint and their capacity for processing high-bandwidth WDM data can lead these devices become the key elements for the switch nodes in next-generation telecommunication networks. This thesis firstly describes the basic principles of operation of a microring resonator defining 1x2 basic switching element (1B-SE). Then, the 2x2 basic SE (2B-SE) based on two 1B-SEs jointly controlled and the new 2x2 mirrored SE (2M-SE) are characterised as atomic building elements for interconnection architectures. The severe asymmetric behaviour presented by those SEs could limit the scalability of classical optical switching fabrics and we aim at balancing the complexity and optical signal level. In a second stage, the well-known switching theory is revised in order to classify the interconnection architectures according to their characteristics when using that SEs as building element. It is applied an exhaustive procedure to obtain the performance of classical Crossbar and Benes structures and of the newly proposed Mirroring and HBC structures. Thereafter, using as a starting point for each analysed structure the characterisation previously obtained, the scalability response of larger switching fabrics is explored. Then we define a construction rule for the new proposed architectures of which we assess the complexity in terms of used microring

Optical architectures for high performance switching and routing

This thesis investigates optical interconnection networks for high performance switching and routing. Two main topics are studied. The first topic regards the use of silicon microring resonators for short reach optical interconnects. Photonic technologies can help to overcome the intrinsic limitations of electronics when used in interconnects, short-distance transmissions and switching operations. This thesis considers the peculiarasymmetric losses of microring resonators since they pose unprecedented challenges for the design of the architecture and for the routing algorithms. It presents new interconnection architectures, proposes modifications on classical routing algorithms and achieves a better performance in terms of fabric complexity and scalability with respect to the state of the art. Subsequently, this thesis considers wavelength dimension capabilities of microring resonators in which wavelength reuse (i.e. crosstalk accumulation) presents impairments on the system performance. To this aim, it presents different crosstalk reduction techniques, a feasibility analysis for the design of microring resonators and a novel wavelength-agile routing matrix. The second topic regards flexible resource allocation with adaptable infrastructure for elastic optical networks. In particular, it focus on Architecture on Demand (AoD), whereby optical node architectures can be reconfigured on the fly according to traffic requirements. This thesis includes results on the first flexible-grid optical spectrum networking field trial, carried out in a collaboration with University of Essex. Finally, it addresses several challenges that present the novel concept AoD by means of modeling and simulation. This thesis proposes an algorithm to perform automatic architecture synthesis, reports AoD scalability and power consumption results working under the proposed synthesis algorithm. Such results validate AoD as a flexible node concept that provides power efficiency and high switching capacity

Optical Interconnections based on Microring Resonators

Projecte fet en col.laboració amb la Facoltà di Ingegneria dell’Informazione. Politecinco de TorinoThe aim of this thesis is to present and analyse optical interconnection architectures based on microring resonators. The trend of meeting large bandwidth and strict latency requirements in both global on-chip and off-chip communication face critical challenges in maintaining a sustainable performance-per-watt. Optical technologies support the immense bandwidth allowed by wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) while could offer a significant power saving switching capabilities. Microring resonators have received considerable attention as promising technologies for realizing photonic integrated circuits. Their small footprint and their capacity for processing high-bandwidth WDM data can lead these devices become the key elements for the switch nodes in next-generation telecommunication networks. This thesis firstly describes the basic principles of operation of a microring resonator defining 1x2 basic switching element (1B-SE). Then, the 2x2 basic SE (2B-SE) based on two 1B-SEs jointly controlled and the new 2x2 mirrored SE (2M-SE) are characterised as atomic building elements for interconnection architectures. The severe asymmetric behaviour presented by those SEs could limit the scalability of classical optical switching fabrics and we aim at balancing the complexity and optical signal level. In a second stage, the well-known switching theory is revised in order to classify the interconnection architectures according to their characteristics when using that SEs as building element. It is applied an exhaustive procedure to obtain the performance of classical Crossbar and Benes structures and of the newly proposed Mirroring and HBC structures. Thereafter, using as a starting point for each analysed structure the characterisation previously obtained, the scalability response of larger switching fabrics is explored. Then we define a construction rule for the new proposed architectures of which we assess the complexity in terms of used microring

Convertidor estàtic per a un sistema d'alimentació ininterrompuda

El següent projecte consisteix en l’estudi, el disseny i la implementació d’un convertidor estàtic capaç d’alimentar un sistema d’alimentació ininterrompuda. En primer lloc, s’explica el concepte de convertidor estàtic amb la seva definició, classificació, estructura i aplicacions típiques. A continuació, s’aprofundeix de manera teòrica la classificació i el funcionament del tipus de convertidor estàtic escollit. Finalment, trobem l’elaboració del disseny realitzat del convertidor per tal de muntar-ne un prototip

On the importance of time-synchronized operations in software-defined electronic and optical networks

The utilization of time-synchronized operations (TSO) is gaining interest in the research community on Software-Defined Networking (SDN). This paper discusses TSO applicability in electronic packet and optical networks. In electronic packet networks, the TSO approach has been shown to improve network performance, thanks to timed network updates. In optical networks, this approach enables novel security applications and permits to reduce lightpath disruption time. We finally discuss TSO further potentialities and requirements regarding clock availability in network elements

OSNR-aware control of optical white boxes on elastic optical networks

Asia Communications and Photonics Conferene (ACP) © OSA 2016 Results of optical white boxes on Elastic Optical Networks with adaptive modulation format and symbol rate simulations demonstrate that synthesized nodes improve capacity under low loads while preserving performance of existing ROADMs for higher loads

Overview of South-Bound Interfaces for Software-Defined Optical Networks

In SDN-enabled networks, the control plane and data plane interaction relies on open SouthBound Interfaces (SBIs) so that the SDN controller exercises direct control over the data plane elements. In this paper, we review current initiatives of SBI to control optical components which include ad-hoc extensions of OpenFlow and YANG modelling proposals combined with the NETCONF / RESTCONF protocols. Then we overview different tools and frameworks available for quick prototyping and deployment of software services that are compliant with such interfaces. Finally, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the reviewed initiatives considered key enablers for standardized end-to-end network programmability

Traffic allocation strategies in WSS-based dynamic optical networks

Elastic optical networking (EON) is a viable solution to meet future dynamic capacity requirements of Internet service provider and inter-datacenter networks. At the core of EON, wavelength selective switches (WSSs) are applied to individually route optical circuits, while assigning an arbitrary bandwidth to each circuit. Critically, the WSS control scheme and configuration time may delay the creation time of each circuit in the network. In this paper, we first detail the WSS-based optical data-plane implementation of a metropolitan network test-bed. Then, we review a software-defined networking (SDN) application designed to enable dynamic and fast circuit setup. Subsequently, we introduce a WSS logical model that captures the WSS time-sequence and is used to estimate the circuit-setup response time. Then, we present two batch service policies that aim to reduce the circuit-setup response time by bundling multiple WSS reconfiguration steps into a single SDN command. Resulting performance gains are estimated through simulation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Experimental Validation of Time-Synchronized Operations for Software-Defined Elastic Optical Networks

Elastic optical networks (EON) have been proposed as a solution to efficiently exploit the spectrum resources in the physical layer of optical networks. Moreover, by centralizing legacy generalized multiprotocol label switching control-plane functionalities and providing a global network view, software-defined networking (SDN) enables advanced network programmability valuable to control and configure the technological breakthroughs of EON. In this paper, we review our recent proposal [Optical Fiber Communication Conf., Los Angeles, California, 2017] of time-synchronized operations (TSO) to minimize disruption time during lightpath reassignment in EON. TSO has been recently standardized in SDN, and here we discuss its implementation using NETCONF and OpenFlow in optical networks. Subsequently, we update our analytical model considering an experimental characterization of the WSS operation time. Then, we extend our previous work with an experimental validation of TSO for lightpath reassignment in a five-node metropolitan optical network test-bed. Results validate the convenience of our TSO-based approach against a traditional asynchronous technique given its reduction of disruption time, while both techniques maintain a similar network performance in terms of optical signal-to-noise ratio and optical power budget