Methods and systems relating to optical networks
First Claim
1. A device comprising:
- a pluggable optic housing;
a pair of optical connectors or pigtails coupled to a receiver and a transmitter position allowing daisy-chaining of multiple instances of the device as well as point to point connectivity between two instances of the device onto two fibers;
a tunable optical transmitter comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEM) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and
a tunable optical receiver comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit;
wherein the first or second rotatable MOEMS within at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising;
a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator;
a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and
an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Data center interconnections, which encompass WSCs as well as traditional data centers, have become both a bottleneck and a cost/power issue for cloud computing providers, cloud service providers and the users of the cloud generally. Fiber optic technologies already play critical roles in data center operations and will increasingly in the future. The goal is to move data as fast as possible with the lowest latency with the lowest cost and the smallest space consumption on the server blade and throughout the network. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for new fiber optic interconnection architectures to address the traditional hierarchal time-division multiplexed (TDM) routing and interconnection and provide reduced latency, increased flexibility, lower cost, lower power consumption, and provide interconnections exploiting N×M×D Gbps photonic interconnects wherein N channels are provided each carrying M wavelength division signals at D Gbps.
34 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A device comprising:
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a pluggable optic housing; a pair of optical connectors or pigtails coupled to a receiver and a transmitter position allowing daisy-chaining of multiple instances of the device as well as point to point connectivity between two instances of the device onto two fibers; a tunable optical transmitter comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEM) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and a tunable optical receiver comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit; wherein the first or second rotatable MOEMS within at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising; a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator; a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A system comprising:
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a plurality of serially connected reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs), each ROADM providing for an addition of a first predetermined number of wavelength channels to a link within an optical network to which the ROADM is connected and a subtraction of a second predetermined number of wavelength channels from the link of the optical network to which the ROADM is connected;
whereineach ROADM is configured upon determination of its position within the plurality of serially connected ROADMs; and each ROADM comprises; one or more tunable optical transmitters each comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and one or more tunable optical receivers each comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit; wherein the first or second rotatable MOEMS within at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising; a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator; a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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11. A system comprising:
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a plurality of nodes, each node of the plurality of nodes being connected to M subsequent sequential nodes via a wavelength division multiplexed link comprising at least M wavelengths, M≥
1, M being an integer, whereineach node of the plurality of nodes is connected to a next Nth node via an Nth wavelength of the at least M wavelengths, N≥
1, N being an integer;employs a reconfigurable optical add-drop switch employing a plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits; a first subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical transmitters each comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMs) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and a second subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical receivers each comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit; wherein the first or second rotatable MOEMS within each at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising; a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator; a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam. - View Dependent Claims (12)
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13. A device comprising:
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a transceiver body, the transceiver body having an external physical geometry compliant to a predetermined optical transceiver standard; a reconfigurable optical add-drop switch employing a plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits of which; a first subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical transmitters each comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and a second subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical receivers each comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit; and an optical amplifier; wherein the reconfigurable optical add-drop switch and optical amplifier are packaged within the transceiver body; and the first or second rotatable MOEMS within each at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising; a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator; a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam. - View Dependent Claims (14)
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15. A device comprising:
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a polarization independent amplifier comprising; a polarization sputter to split an incoming optical signal into TE and TM polarization components; a polarization rotator to rotate the TM polarization component to TE; a pair of semiconductor optic-al amplifiers to amplify the pair of TE polarization components; and a combiner to combine outputs from the pair of semiconductor optical amplifiers; and a reconfigurable optical add-drop module for dropping and adding a predetermined band of wavelengths from a plurality of bands of optical wavelengths employing a plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits; a first subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical transmitters each comprising an optical amplifier and a first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a first plurality of wavelength selective filters and a first rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the first plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the first tunable optical wavelength selective circuit and set an emission wavelength of the tunable optical transmitter; and a second subset of the plurality of tunable optical wavelength selective circuits are tunable optical receivers each comprising one or more photodetectors and a second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a second plurality of wavelength selective filters and a second rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the second plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the second tunable optical wavelength selective circuit; wherein the first or second rotatable MOEMS within each at least one of the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver comprises a rotatable microelectromechanical system comprising; a beam having a first free end and a second distal end coupled to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuator; a pivot disposed at the second distal end of the beam comprising a structure attached to a substrate upon which the first or second rotatable MOEMS is formed; and an optical waveguide having a first portion upon the pivot and a second portion running along the beam from the pivot to the first free end of the beam. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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Specification