High-Performance Multicast Routers using an Optical Switching Core

There is a growing need for routers to support multicast and broadcast applications such as war gaming, teleconferencing and web casting. Using the natural parallelism of optics in a switching core, high-performance routers that are efficient for heavily multicast/broadcast traffic can be implemented. A broadcast and select based optical switching core can handle efficiently multicast/broadcast traffic while featuring low latency and high bit rates and/or high throughputs. Two designs of switching cores are described. When the traffic is aggregated into superframes, such as in a backbone network, an optical switching core with broadcast and select fabric and tunable filters can be used. When arbitrary frame sizes need to be supported, a hybrid switching fabric is described that uses optics for distribution and high-speed backplane or interconnect and electronic switching between the detectors and the outgoing line cards.