Twin Multicast Switch

• US 20140270760A1
• Filed: 03/04/2014
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Molex LLC (KOCH Industries Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Oplink Communications
• Inventors: Liu, Kun, Xu, Kesheng, Gong, Lifu, Zhou, Feng Qing
• Granted Patent: US 9,497,519 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 398/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0204 Broadcast and select arrangements, e.g. with an optical splitter at the input before adding or dropping
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0212 using optical switches or wavelength selective switches [WSS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0217 Multi-degree architectures, e.g. having a connection degree greater than two
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 11/0005 Switch and router aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2011/0015 using splitting combining
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2011/003 using switches based on microelectro-mechanical systems [MEMS]

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for optical switching. An optical switch device includes a first multicast switch unit; and a second multicast switch unit, wherein each of the first and second multicast switch units respectively include: multiple optical input ports; multiple optical switches; multiple optical splitters/combiners; and multiple optical output ports.

Claims

1. An optical device comprising:

a drop optical multicast switch unit, comprising;

a plurality of input optical ports,

a plurality of optical splitters, each optical splitter coupled to a corresponding input optical port,

a plurality of optical switches, each optical switch coupled to each optical splitter of the plurality of optical splitters, and

a plurality of output optical ports; and

an add optical multicast switch unit, comprising;

a plurality of input optical ports;

a plurality of optical switches, each optical switch coupled to a corresponding input optical port;

a plurality of optical combiners, each optical combiner coupled to each optical switch of the plurality of optical switches, and

a plurality of output optical ports coupled to a corresponding optical combiner.

2. The optical device of claim 1, wherein the first optical multicast switch unit and the second optical multicast switch unit are symmetrical.

3. The optical device of claim 1, wherein the first optical multicast switch unit is N×

M and second optical multicast switch unit is A×

B, where N×

M is distinct from A×

B.

4. The optical device of claim 1, wherein the optical switches are micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) based optical switches.

5. The optical device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of optical switches in first optical multicast switch unit comprises L×

1 selectors, wherein L≧

N.

6. The optical device of claim 5, wherein extra input ports (L−

N) of the L×

1 selectors of the plurality of optical switches are reserved as expansion ports.

7. The optical device of claim 1, wherein an input optical signal at a first optical input port of the first optical multicast switch unit is split into M portions by a corresponding optical splitter and distributed to each of the plurality of optical switches.

8. The optical device of claim 1, wherein each optical switch of the plurality of optical switches in the first optical multicast switch unit receives an input from each input optical port and selects one to output to an output optical port.

9. The optical device of claim 1, wherein an input optical signal at a first optical input port of the second optical multicast switch unit is input to a first switch of the plurality of optical switches, wherein the first switch is coupled to each of the plurality of optical combiners such that the first switch can pass the input optical signal to any one of the plurality of optical combiners.

10. A twin multicast switch module comprising:

a first multicast switch unit; and

a second multicast switch unit,

wherein each of the first and second multicast switch units respectively comprises;

a plurality of optical input ports;

a plurality of optical switches;

a plurality of optical splitters/combiners; and

a plurality of optical output ports.

11. The twin multicast switch module of claim 10, wherein the first multicast switch unit is a drop unit and the second multicast switch unit is an add unit.