Design alternatives for N-stage WDM optical planar permutation networks

Planar permutation networks are a class of multistage switching networks with no crossover between paths that interconnect switching elements. A well-known class of planar networks is the N-Stage network that provides a good compromise between the crossbar and the Benes network. In this paper, we address the problem of designing cost-effective N-Stage optical planar networks with space-wavelength switching capability. Such networks are used for switching in communication and computing systems that employ Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. We investigate two classes of space-wavelength N-stage planar networks, and for each class, we design a number of switching networks and analyze their hardware complexity. In addition, we propose a new method for designing a class of space-wavelength planar networks with reduced complexity. It is shown that, for F ≤ W (where F is the total number of fibers and W that of wavelengths) the proposed method results in planar networks with an average of 67% reduction in overall cost compared to that of networks based on fixed-range wavelength converters.