Methods and devices for space-time multi-plane optical networks

A method of routing comprising:

• providing a plurality of M input cards, each input card having a plurality of input ports for receiving electrical signals for transmission from source device, an optical output connected to an input port of an optical interconnection network;
• providing a plurality of M output cards, each output card having an optical input connected to an output port of the optical interconnection network and a plurality of output ports for transmitting electrical signals to destination devices;
• providing the optical interconnection network comprising a M×M fast space switch;
• providing an inter-card scheduler for controlling reconfiguration of the M×M fast space switch, the inter-card scheduler also in communication with the plurality of input cards;
• generating a plurality of time-compressed wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) packets at an input card of the plurality of input card, wherein each time-compressed WDM packet corresponding to a serial electrical data packet from an input port of the plurality of N input ports of the input card and for transmission upon a predetermined sub-slot of a plurality of sub-slots, wherein the predetermined sub-slot is determined by an intra-card scheduler in dependence upon the target output port of the plurality of output ports of a target output card and the target output card, where each of the time-compressed packets is generated by encoding serial electrical data from the corresponding input port of the plurality of input ports into parallel optical data at the optical output through the process of:
• receiving an electrical serial data packet for transmission comprising a predetermined number of bits;
• encoding each bit of the electrical serial data packet onto a predetermined wavelength of a plurality of wavelengths;
• delaying each wavelength of the plurality of wavelengths by a first predetermined time delay;
• multiplexing the delayed plurality of wavelengths by a multiplexer;
• gating with a first gate the plurality of wavelengths to form a parallel optical time-compressed WDM packet, wherein the gated wavelengths are all aligned in time in the predetermined sub-slot;
• and
• combining and coupling to the optical output of the input card N optical time-compressed WDM packets each corresponding to one of the input port of the N input ports of the input card of the plurality of input cards, each optical time-compressed WDM packet in a sub-slot of the plurality of sub-slots;
• transmitting the optical time-compressed WDM packets from the input card of the plurality of input cards to the target output card of the plurality of output cards via the optical interconnection network which is established into a predetermined switching configuration by the scheduler;
• and
• generating an electrical output signal at the target output port of the plurality of output ports of a target output card, wherein the electrical output signal is generated by converting at a receiver the optical true-compressed WDM packets to output serial electrical data through the process of:
• receiving at a single optical input of the receiver the plurality of optical time-compressed WDM packets;
• splitting each of the plurality of optical time-compressed WDM packets into N portions each coupling to a second gate;
• gating with the second gate the time-compressed WDM packet;
• delaying each gated wavelength of the time-compressed WDM packet by a second predetermined time delay to generate a delayed gated wavelength, each second predetermined time delay determined in dependence upon the first predetermined time delay;
• and
• coupling the plurality of delayed gated wavelengths to a photodetector to generate the output serial electrical data.