A new model of nonblocking multicast WDM optical switching network with reduced complexity

As optical networking becomes a promising choice to meet the ever-increasing demands on bandwidth, constructing multicast wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) switching networks with cheap components and low complexity is a key issue. On the basis of three-stage Clos network, we propose an optimal model of strictly nonblocking multicast (SNBM) WDM optical switching networks. Our analysis shows that the hardware complexity of the proposed model compares favorably to that of existing architectures while the performance is kept high. In addition, compared with wide-sense nonblocking (WSNB) networks, the new model does not need specific routing algorithm which consumes large space and time and is relatively easy to be implemented. Therefore, our model is much more cost-effective and thus practical for both optical circuit-switching and optical packet/burst switching.