A method for generating a switch fabric topology, comprising constructing a first switch fabric topology, modifying the first switch fabric topology to generate a second switch fabric topology, wherein modifying the first switch fabric topology comprises isolating center stage sets of the first switch fabric topology, and replacing each of the isolated center stage sets with a single switching element to generate the second switch fabric topology, wherein is an integer representing a radix of the switching element determined in connection with the constructing of the first switch fabric topology.

In general, techniques are described for automatically configuring fiber cross-connects between customers of an interconnection facility. In some examples, a programmable network platform for an interconnection facility exposes an interface by which customers of the interconnection system provider may request fiber cross-connects to other customers of the interconnection system provider. The programmable network platform may, in response to a request for a fiber cross-connect, configure an optical switch fabric of the interconnection facility network infrastructure to create a fiber cross-connect between the demarcation points for the customers to be interconnected.

Hybrid dilated Benes photonic switching architectures employ an arrangement of two-by-one (21) photonic and two-by-two (22) photonic elements to enjoy improved cross-talk performance while maintaining moderate cell counts. A jumpsuit switch optical network node architecture comprising multiple stages may operate more efficiently than single stage switching fabrics, by enabling manipulation of connectivity in some stages to achieve load balancing over other stages. Specifically, a first stage of switching fabrics connected to input ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance incoming signals over a second stage of switching fabrics coupled to output ports of the optical node. Additionally, a third stage of switching fabrics connected to add ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance added optical signals over the second stage of switching fabrics.

The present disclosure describes an optical routing circuit (ORC) which may be used to route an input optical signal to one or more optical output channels of the ORC. The ORC comprises a network of nodes for carrying out the task of optical signal routing. The nodes may be controlled by a node control system through electrical node control channels. The ORC may simplify the electrical interface between the nodes and the node control system by sharing an electrical node control channel among a subset of nodes of the ORC. Nodes of the ORC may transmit electrical signals between the nodes. The present disclosure also describes a node which may be used to construct the ORC and a method of routing an optical signal. The present disclosure may enable a large ORC with many nodes to be practically implemented.

Hybrid dilated Benes photonic switching architectures employ an arrangement of two-by-one (21) photonic and two-by-two (22) photonic elements to enjoy improved cross-talk performance while maintaining moderate cell counts. A jumpsuit switch optical network node architecture comprising multiple stages may operate more efficiently than single stage switching fabrics, by enabling manipulation of connectivity in some stages to achieve load balancing over other stages. Specifically, a first stage of switching fabrics connected to input ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance incoming signals over a second stage of switching fabrics coupled to output ports of the optical node. Additionally, a third stage of switching fabrics connected to add ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance added optical signals over the second stage of switching fabrics.

This invention discloses a distributed optical switching and interconnect chip and system having multiple connected nodes, each node including an optical routing unit with one side having multiple internal input/output ports and the other side having multiple external input/output ports, a laser array and a photodetector array, connected to the internal input and output ports, respectively. The external output ports are connected to the external input ports of other nodes through optical waveguides. The signals received by the photodetectors can be dropped to the node or re-routed to the lasers by an electronic packet switching chip for re-transmission to other nodes. The invention integrates and encapsulates laser arrays, photodetector arrays, optical routing units and interconnection network in one chip. The distributed optical switching chip and system architecture have the advantages of high scalability, low latency and low power consumption, and can be used for multi-chip computing systems and datacenters.