Cascaded optical delay line architectures in the performance of optical MIN

Internally buffered multistage interconnection network (MIN) architectures have been widely used in parallel computer systems and large switching fabrics. Migration from electrical domain to optical domain has raised the necessity of developing node architectures with optical buffers. Cascaded optical delay line(COD) emulates output buffering in a 2/spl times/2 switching element. Two versions of COD are track changer (TC) and twin track changer (TTC). These approaches can be used as a buffered switching element in a Banyan like MIN. We investigate and compare these approaches by using simulation methods. Different performance metrics, such as throughput-delay ratio, packet loss rate have been used under uniform and nonuniform traffic models. Results show that TC-chain node Banyan network offer an improved throughput-delay ratio performance under both traffic models.