At the OFC 2014 Conference, Chinese telecom network equipment vendor Huawei demonstrated its wavelength-based multidimensional all-optical cross-connect technology.
Huawei said the 8-dimension (80 waves per dimension) optical cross-connect prototype implements a free cross-connect of 640 x 640 waves.
Currently, an N-dimension optical node consists of 2xN independent optical modules. For example, an 8-dimension optical node consists of 16 wavelength selective switches using 64 pigtails, resulting in a complicated structure.
Huawei said its optical cross-connect prototype uses an optical engine that enables a programmable million-pixel array to be integrated into a 1 cm2 silicon wafer.
The company said the prototype adopts an optical design that allows it to implement the functions of 16 independent optical modules and support bidirectional free cross-connect of 8-dimension 640 x 640 waves, significantly improving integration and reducing cost.
Huawei said the prototype supports a spectral width of 12.5 GHz, but can support a minimum spectral width of 2 GHz (which is 4 percent of the 50 GHz currently supported by mainstream product) and 16 dimensions.
picture source: teletimesinternational
