Simulation of fast packet-switched photonic networks for interprocessor communication

This paper considers the application of time-division multiplexing as an enhancement to the performance of photonic space switching networks, breaking this tie between transmission and switching bandwidths in space-division topologies. In this way better utilization of the photonic switching bandwidth is achieved. Both synchronous and asynchronous TDM are considered. A simulation study is conducted to examine the buffer behavior at input and output stages of two proposed architectures. The interest is in buffer latency and saturation point as functions of the offered load and the multiplexing factor L. The effect of the latter parameter dominates with the single channel fabric. For an N*N fabric, the input buffer singularity is determined by L/N. In the strictly nonblocking fabric, it is shown that for an arbitrarily large switch dimension, delay performance tends to converge for L>2.<>