Optical Switch with Fast Switching and Fast Transceiver Acquisition

Abstract

This disclosure presents systems and methods for an optical circuit switch (OCS), optical burst switch (OBS), and hybrid OBS (HOBS) featuring microsecond-range reconfiguration times—critical for modern AI/ML workloads demanding both low latency and high bandwidth. By combining fast switching elements (e.g., silicon photonics) with burst-mode transceivers that reduce acquisition from seconds to microseconds, the proposed architectures enable efficient data center interconnects. The design coordinates switch reconfiguration and transceiver lock-in through in-band or out-of-band control, minimizing overhead to under ten percent of each burst's duration. Additional optimizations—such as buffering packet headers, using a second wavelength for control signals, and employing partial DSP training—further boost performance while reducing power consumption. These fast optical switches support both short, frequent bursts (scale-up) and large, stable flows (scale-out), delivering high-throughput, low-latency connections suitable for AI/ML clusters, HPC environments, and other dynamic data center applications.

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