The 1st Commercial-Grade All-Optical Switch? 73
joabj writes: "Today's Washington Post trumpeted the delivery of the first-ever commercial-grade optic-switch, by Corvis Corp. I'm not sure how commercially viable a switch the size of a refrigerator can be, though a commercial-grade all-photonic switch is indeed, as the WP points out, a "holy grail" of the optics industry--the missing piece for the 40-80 Gbps throughput for fiber optic cable that the industry is so hungering for these days. (Now, photonic signals must be converted into electrical signals to be switched, then back into light again -- slowing transmission speeds considerably.) Unfortunately neither the article (Free reg. req.) nor Corvis' own
Web site explains what the winning technology was. There are a lot of competing ideas out there
on how to switch optical signals. Is it MEMs? Liquid crystals? Curious minds want to know ..."
Initially, this sounds a lot like the optical switch announced by Agilent a little while ago, but with the bonus of being ready "within a few weeks" from workaday life. (Does that mean the equipment reported as delivered is still being installed or set up?) [Updated 11th Oct. 2000 4:05 GMT by timothy:] As a few people have pointed out in comments, that free registration is pretty painless ... since it's not necessary. Better than the other way around! ;)
Re:wow...fp (Score:1)
small unimportant note -- (Score:2)
Internet killed the video star,
Refrgierator size isn't to bad (Score:1)
Finnaly that OC3 will come in a handy (Score:1)
Switching method (Score:2)
It's something which when revealed will be "obvious" to everyone on ./ and which has plenty of prior art. Just kidding (I agree that most patents which appear on ./ are absurd, but if this company patents the technique that they used to make their switch it at least sounds like it would be a good use of the patent system for once).
Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:5)
Already Competitors... (Score:2)
Re:My Gawd! (Score:1)
Re:Switching method (Score:2)
Re:My Gawd! (Score:1)
This is, instead, a story about a big clunky horrible switch that, in ten years, will be the size of a frisbee and which we will all happily take for granted.
I got it... (Score:1)
How about a little mirror that takes the incoming beam, and swings around to aim it at a proper outgoing sensor. The size is to hold the big-ass superconducting magnet needed to swing the mirror at Ghz speeds.
So here's the question. How small would the mirror have to be so that it wouldn't have to swing faster than relativistic speeds, and then how much power would it take to make it move a 100 million times a second (Let's say 10Ghz optical switch, 1000 bit packet size)? Come on Physics students, step up to the plate. :)
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Here comes Digital Video Funland! (Score:1)
I've already had one of the Mexican spam sites order about 10 of these babies. We'll be downloading digital video from Hong Kong and Taipei and pumping it up to California for free.
Who need DVDs when you can crank out theater-quality surround sound pictures at these speeds? There goes the backbone
Lucent also claims first. (Score:2)
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:1)
s/[Mm]irros/mirrors/
What happened to my "r" key?
First to Market (Score:2)
I'm not sure how commercially viable a switch the size of a refrigerator can be . . .
The need to be first to market is likely the major reason for the size. Comments like
"For the last six to eight months, this has been an industry of warning shots by all sorts of optical-equipment companies,"
and
At least one Corvis rival takes issue with the company's first-to-market claims. Lucent Technologies Inc. said it delivered a similar all-optical technology for commercial use last month to Global Crossing Ltd
make it clear that first to market was first on their minds. The size wil probably drop by half every 8-12 months.
1Alpha7
But that would be against US law! (Score:1)
I'm listening to a mexican radio, oh wo oh wo
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:1)
Really? I just posted a joke about this. I didn't think they would really do it using mirrors. Seems so ... crude ... somehow.
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Re:I got it... (Score:1)
Oh yeah? (Score:2)
Optical Switches do exist. (Score:1)
The reason I know this might be the same reason that I know that Marconi is a totally sucky company to work for.
FatPhil
Re:optical switching. . . (Score:1)
Re:First to Market (Score:1)
Then you can use the leftover space in the NOC to install an actual refrigerator! And you can put all kinds of stuff in it, like six-packs of bee.. uh... soda.
Optical Switch?!? (Score:1)
Commercial switches vs. prototypes (Score:4)
Personally, I take announcements of prototypes such as those above with a grain of salt. A prototype is still further away from production than most people realize. You can pretty much do anything you want within the limits of physics, given a big enough R&D budget (and snazzy enough PR department to tout your work). But for your prototype to A: work *all* the time in the field, B: and for a competitive price, and C: to be compatable with existing standards, are the hurdles that kills 99.5% of all new technologies. . . joab
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:2)
Basically if you pump the signal beyond the normal linear behaviour you an get different frequencies to behave completely differently from each other. You can get a "mirror" using total internal reflection for any single frequency in the FDM.
Non-linear here means that when you add the signals together you don't get the sum of the inputs as the output!
FatPhil
Only a geek could love (Score:3)
But it is so interesting that optical switching has become the rock star of the day. Because essentially these are very low intelligence switches that perform very cool optical tricks. These devices are essentially circuit switched devices. But even that is probably too much credit they are static circuit switched devices. Because optical paths are setup by a network administrator. An IP router or carrier voice switch are far more intelligent then one of these devices. No one gets excited about add/drop muxes anymore but I am sure in their day it was big deal. Add/drop muxes became a commodity, just as optical switches probably will become some day. These devices, along with IP routers, ATM switches, ethernet switches, sonet muxes, dwdm, etc... are low glamor working class equipment of the carriers networks.
The most interesting part is the ability split out or splice in individual wavelengths, neat trick.
I like this a lot. (Score:1)
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Re:Klan Song [With Proper Formatting] (Score:1)
Shouldn't you be busy trying to find eligible cousins?
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:5)
The difficulty with optical switches is in determining _where_ to switch the data without converting it to the electrical domain first. Plenty of schemes have been proposed where the data goes O->E to read the headers and decide where to switch it, and then optically switches the packet farther along the path (where the actualy signal of the packet never left the optical domain), but no one has come up with a switch that does it _all_ in the optical domain. Admittedly, few if any of these "mostly-optical" systems have been built.
I'm not sure what Lucent and Corvis have done. It sounds to me like they have probably implemented one of these systems. They claim it's "all-optical", but I doubt that they have built this without at least the headers being converted to the electrical domain. Even so, it's an impressive achievement to have made a commercially viable product which does that much. It remains to be seen which way will end up being more cost-effective in the long run. After all, that's what matters in the industry.
-Puk (Yes I'm Probably Wrong)
Data Switch vs Telecom Switch (Score:4)
Re:Optical Switch?!? (Score:1)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Re:I got it... (Score:1)
Well, I thought it was apparent from the post that I was joking, but...
On the other hand, some of the other posters are saying that they may actually be using microscopic mirrors, so the joke's on both of us.
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Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:My Gawd! (Score:2)
Re:I got it... (Score:2)
Re:First to Market (Score:2)
steering then? (Score:1)
A question (Score:1)
I seriously doubt this (Score:1)
Corvis has a law suit filed against them already.. (Score:3)
How this will effect the switch is unknown as of yet.
Some real information.... (Score:5)
Corvis's switch is an all-optical switch. No eletrical regeneration involved. What it is switching is wavelengths of light. NOT packets. So, you can take a wavelength of light from one fiber and send it out another. This allows you to set up 2.5Gbps (OC-48) circuits quickly.
What technology are they using - don't won't say. Almost all other people in this arena are basically splitting the dense-wave-division-multiplexed (DWDM) circuits into their individual wavelengths. Then routing them through micro-mirrors. The micro-mirrors allow you to connect any two fibers together optically. Then, the outputs from this are re-combined, optically amplified and transmitted.
This isn't for sure what Corvis is doing - but I would bet money that this is basically what they are doing.
One problem with this is that you can't have two circuits on a fiber using the same wavelength of light. So, you would need something that shifts the wavelength of light being used. Nobody that I know of has a commercial product to do this.
Press blurb about this particular thing is available in a Light Reading article. [lightreading.com]
A couple of weeks ago, Corvis announced that they had revenue - from this shipment of course. [lightreading.com]
One more link - Some hints to what technology they are using. [lightreading.com]
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros [Correcting Myself] (Score:1)
While this is a very useful tool for designing and provisioning (and reconfiguring) networks, it is hardly a breakthrough, nor is it the "holy grail" of optical switching.
-Puk "I Will Surely Have To Correct Myself Again"
Probably requires a new kind of encoding! (Score:3)
Of course, this brings an optical switch into the realm of analog computing, instead of digital, but hey...
Dunno if this is even possible inside of a fiber, but can one encode a holographic signal into the header? This depends on the signal being coherent in the fiber, but if you can take the signal and recombine it with a similarly coherent signal, you can get data out. This data is still optical, perhaps in the form of a grid pattern(barcode here!) which can be read and interpreted. At this point it would seem an electrical device is still needed to operate the switch...
I dunno, how do they really encode this information? Just binary pulse data?
The nick is a joke! Really!
Different Freqencies... (Score:3)
The first switch reads the header and assigns the frequency, then the subsequent switches simply switch based on frequency (never reading the content of the packet). Then the last switch, (who owns that frequency) then converts it to electricity and sends it over the regular network (i.e. like ethernet...)
One day, we will all be assigned frequencies like we are assigned IP addresses and all info will be transported by fiber.
You lot amuse me sometimes :-) (Score:2)
That's because you don't know what you're talking about! Do you think that a company that can afford a switch this size cares that it's this "big"? You've obviously never seen how "big" a good unix box is.
PS: Moderators: It's not flamebait, I have a clue....
Ever seen an all-optical router? (Score:1)
My qualms come from the simple fact that this router will have to be on steady ground. This certainly wouldn't be useful in San Fran, Kobe, or anywhere near a fault line or artificial seismic activity.
Re:Optical Switch?!? (Score:1)
I propose that moderation privileges be withheld until the candidate has passed a multiple choice exam on the meaning of the moderation descriptions.
The grading script should probably be written by someone other than CmdrTaco.
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Stock price (Score:4)
Lucent is the closest to an all optical switch followed (a fair way back) by an English company call goouch and housego (I think the spelling is slightly off there).
Re:Some real information.... (Score:1)
a) demux's (filters) one of say 160 wavelengths OC-48 you have on a single fiber.
b) changes its wavelength, say from 1550nm to 1600nm (all optically)
c) mux's it back onto another fiber with 159 other wavelengths and away it goes?
So all it does is basically automates the process of Mux/Demux and changing patch panel cables. But the key is that there is no electrical conversion of the whole payload so if I just want one OC-48 channel way out in the country off of a 160 OC-768 backbone I don't slow down a shitload of terabits/s (half the net) for one 2.48 Gb/s channel.
Have I got it right?
Re:pictures of the tiny mirrors! (Score:1)
Optical logic gates coming out of the labs (Score:2)
All-solid-state nonelectric optical computing (OC) with photon-controlled fast-acting logic gates must be part of the equation of tomorrow's terabit speed network nodes. They got stuff in the OC labs like special polymer material that acts like transistors but switches state faster - and conducts streams of photons instead of current - the stuff changes light transmission properties when a control photon source is applied. Nothing electrical in sight. You can build logic circuitry faster than anything electronic and certainly anything mechanical with this stuff.
It'll likely be 'commercially available' eventually, in some form - it's nowhere near practical for use or miniaturization yet, but in the long run it may replace the electronic processors in our computers and move the OEO barrier so that the all-electronic components are used only for less-critical photon-source, I/O and storage systems, and then only swift photons move about inside and connecting the crystalline hearts of all things fast and digital.
Sorta off topic, and much much slower 'technology', does anyone have any pointers to projects dabbling in fluid logic gates, using only the dynamics of liquids in ducts and valves to set logic states and act on them? The experiments with water 'transistors' I've heard mentioned used a control source of liquid to nudge a stream from one fork in the flow path to another.
Re:I got it... (Score:1)
Actually, the most popular method of switching optical signals does use tiny mirrors. The other system (IIRC, by Hewlett-Packard and/or Agilent) uses tiny bubbles. No, I'm not making this up.
You mean like IBM's work on atomic-force microscope data storage [ibm.com]: tiny needles read and write pits on a plastic surface. ;-)
I believe I recall seeing PR ads on TV... (Score:2)
My solution is better. (Score:1)
Nonlinear switching (Score:1)
This is not news.....optical logic would be news! (Score:1)
Re:I seriously doubt this (Score:1)
The cool part about all-optical switching is that you're now using an optical signal to tell the modulator which path to send the optical data. no more electric signal. There are a few methods in which to do this, but I'm not too familiar with them.
Although, technically speaking, we've had all-optical switching for a long time now. When you send any AC electric signal down a transmission line, you're sending photons, believe it or not!
Re:I've got an idea here .. (Score:1)
Re:Nonlinear switching (Score:1)
Re:Optical Switches do exist. (Score:1)
It's probably using SOA technology (Score:1)
When there is no current applied to an SOA, it is a strong absorber. So you only apply current to N of the N^2 SOA's, and those will be the only paths that allow light to pass. Then you take the N^2 paths and combine them in an interleaved pattern back into N paths forming the outputs of the switch.
The article I read claims Corvis' switch is 6x6. The advantage over MEMS is that there are no moving parts. The disadvantage is that you cannot easily make big switches since this scales as N^2, and that the noise figure is fundamentally high because of the 1XN splitting loss.
lightreading article [lightreading.com]
Re:Switching method (Score:1)
This lets you split a compound wave (light carrying information) into it's constituent waves and redirect them. Which was the main trouble area that was being encountered. Apparently figuring out what "packet" should go where was never really a problem.
Power Requirements (Score:1)
Re:Data Switch vs Telecom Switch (Score:2)
Re:Some real information.... (Score:1)
The tricky bit is filtering on the basis of wavelength. There's more information on LightChip's Website (http://www.lightchip.com).
MJP
Re:You lot amuse me sometimes :-) (Score:1)
Re:Data Switch vs Telecom Switch (Score:2)
Re:Optical logic gates coming out of the labs (Score:1)
An optical switch? (Score:1)
"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
one-page emails? (Score:1)
Re:Probably Microscopic Mirros (Score:1)
On July 31, Lucent delivered it LamdaRouter to
Global Crossing. It uses MEMS to route signals from fiber to fiber.
How would this interact with the network layer stack (obviously it's layer 1) or U-plane vs C-plane?
Re:Commercial switches vs. prototypes (Score:1)
> in the field, B: and for a competitive price,
> and C: to be compatable with existing standards,
> are the hurdles that kills 99.5% of all new
> technologies. . .
Out of the Obvious Bag, I draw a comment involving "Microsoft", "innovate", and "1 out of 3 ain't bad"...
Re:Refrgierator size isn't to bad (Score:1)