Compact Optical Buffer Module for Intra-Packet Synchronization Based on InP 18 Switch and Silica-Based Delay Line Circuit

Myung-Joon KWACK  Tomofumi OYAMA  Yasuaki HASHIZUME  Shinji MINO  Masaru ZAITSU  Takuo TANEMURA  Yoshiaki NAKANO  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E96-C    No.5    pp.738-743
Publication Date: 2013/05/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1353
DOI: 10.1587/transele.E96.C.738
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Optoelectronics
Keyword: 
optical switch,  optical buffer,  integrated optical devices,  

Full Text: PDF>>
Buy this Article


Summary: 
Optical buffering has been one of the major technical challenges in realizing optical packet switching routers and interconnects. We demonstrate a compact optical buffer module, comprising an InP 18 phased-array switch and a silica-based delay line circuit. The integrated delay line circuit is fabricated on the silica-based planar-lightwave circuit (PLC) platform, and has the ladder architecture for reducing the size. In addition, variable optical couplers are integrated to achieve effective power equalization. Tunable and uniform buffering of up to 21 ns is obtained with 3-ns temporal resolution.