Product Overview

Multicast Switches are wavelength insensitive (and thus transmission speed independent) optical switches which can connect any number of optical inputs and outputs in a fully non-blocking non-restrictive way. This functionality is built using a large array of optical power splitters interconnected to a large array of optical switches. N 1xM splitters connected to M 1xN switches form an NxM multicast switch. A typical MCS configuration is 8×16, however both smaller and larger port-count product versions are also available.

Multicast Switches are an essential building block of Adaptive Optical Networks. Such optical networks provide maximum flexibility to the network operator and enable the network to adopt its performance to the changing needs. The network adaptability is enabled by optical hardware which is transmission speed independent and uses fully non-blocking ROADM mesh architecture.

This most flexible ROADM architecture is called CDC: colorless, directionless and contentionless. In a CDC network, the Multicast Switch (MCS) is coupled with Wavelength Selective Switches (WSS), which together are designed to direct any wavelength to any port (colorless), accept input wavelength channels from multiple directions (directionless), and to be able to drop two identical wavelengths from different directions through the same switch (contentionless).

Functional Diagram is showing Dual 16×16 MCS configuration. TAP-PDs are not shown.