IRIS: An Integrated Router Interconnected Spectrally

Optical switching in a load-balanced architecture can be exploited to build highly scalable packet switches. In this paper we present the architecture of the Integrated Router Interconnected Spectrally (IRIS), an all-optical router that scales to hundreds of Terabits per second. IRIS is based on a novel implementation of a load-balanced switch architecture using optical components and wavelength switching. Since load-balanced systems do not need any centralized control elements, the packet switching capacity is not limited by control electronics and the full potential of optical technologies can be exploited. Furthermore, the load-balanced architecture simplifies the buffer design, which is the most challenging part of any optical router.