First Demonstration of Automated Control and Assessment of a Dynamically Reconfigured Monolithic 8 × 8 Wavelength-and-Space Switch [Invited]

A control plane is implemented to allow the first (to our knowledge) demonstration of scheduling and power leveling in a monolithically integrated 8×8 switch for multi-path and multi-wavelength routing on a data packet timescale. Automated control and path assessment is enabled under dynamically reconfigured wavelength-and-space routing. Eight data connections from eight inputs to each output are established within 8 μs by using a round robin scheduler. Fast automated bit-error-rate measurements under a range of decision thresholds are performed for each of the established connections. A comprehensive analysis on the path performance is performed for the whole device. Error-free (<10−9) operation under dynamic wavelength-and-space routing are demonstrated for all the electrically connected paths. The first investigation on the impact of varied switch loads from unicast to multicast to broadcast on device performance is also performed.