Crossconnect Patents (Class 398/50)
  • Patent number: 11163713
    Abstract: Embodiments are provided herein for efficient component communication and resource optimization in a disaggregated computing system. A general purpose link is provided to connect a computing element to a plurality of other computing elements of the disaggregated computing system. The general purpose link is dynamically switched between a plurality of different hardware protocols to communicate with the other computing elements, where respective ones of the other computing elements comprise different types of hardware elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2021
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Min Li, John A. Bivens, Ruchi Mahindru, Valentina Salapura, Eugen Schenfeld
  • Patent number: 11156772
    Abstract: A method includes forming silicon waveguide sections in a first oxide layer over a substrate, the first oxide layer disposed on the substrate, forming a routing structure over the first oxide layer, the routing structure including one or more insulating layers and one or more conductive features in the one or more insulating layers, recessing regions of the routing structure, forming nitride waveguide sections in the recessed regions of the routing structure, wherein the nitride waveguide sections extend over the silicon waveguide sections, forming a second oxide layer over the nitride waveguide sections, and attaching semiconductor dies to the routing structure, the dies electrically connected to the conductive features.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Chen-Hua Yu, Hsing-Kuo Hsia, Kuo-Chiang Ting, Pin-Tso Lin, Sung-Hui Huang, Shang-Yun Hou, Chi-Hsi Wu
  • Patent number: 11039228
    Abstract: Data center interconnections, which encompass WSCs as well as traditional data centers, have become both a bottleneck and a cost/power issue for cloud computing providers, cloud service providers and the users of the cloud generally. Fiber optic technologies already play critical roles in data center operations and will increasingly in the future. The goal is to move data as fast as possible with the lowest latency with the lowest cost and the smallest space consumption on the server blade and throughout the network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 15, 2021
    Assignee: Aeponyx Inc.
    Inventors: Francois Menard, Martin Berard, Jonathan Briere
  • Patent number: 11026001
    Abstract: Systems and methods increase the fan-out (radix) of optical connections that are co-packaged with electric circuits, e.g., Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Optical or electrical techniques are presented to break out multiple data streams from a Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) integrated with an ASIC. This provides the ability to increase the I/O capability (radix) of an ASIC, allowing the ASIC to connect to a larger number of devices (e.g., servers). A cross-connect system includes one or more cross-connect devices optically interconnected to 1) a plurality of switches with each switch connected to one or more subtending servers, and 2) a plurality of switch circuits having Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) integrated therewith, each of the one or more cross-connect devices is configured to provide fan-out of the plurality of switches between the plurality of switch circuits to increase a number of the subtending servers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2021
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Y. Frankel, Eric Maniloff
  • Patent number: 10855377
    Abstract: An optical transmission apparatus (1_1) according to the present invention includes a first transmission unit (11_1) that transmits a first optical transmission signal (21_1), a second transmission unit (11_2) that transmits a second optical transmission signal (21_2), and an output unit that outputs, when the first optical transmission signal (21_1) and the second optical transmission signal (21_2) share a set of information, both the first optical transmission signal (21_1) and the second optical transmission signal (21_2) to a first path (26_1) and outputs, when the first optical transmission signal (21_1) and the second optical transmission signal (21_2) do not share the set of information, one of the first optical transmission signal (21_1) and the second optical transmission signal (21_2) to a second path (26_2).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Yoshiaki Aono
  • Patent number: 10791021
    Abstract: Technologies are disclosed for storage and retrieval of parameters used in the creation and editing of infrastructure-as-code (IAC) templates. An infrastructure-as-code (“IAC”) template related to desired resources available in a service provider network for configuring a stack of the desired resources in the service provider network is provided. The IAC template includes an identification of a key-value pair associated with resource definitions related to the desired resources and are stored in a data store. Based upon the identification of the key-value pair, a look-up function is used to call a stateless event driven compute service function to query the data store for the resource definitions. Once the resource definitions are received from the data store, based upon the IAC template and the resource definitions, the stack of the desired resources is configured.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Anuj Premnarayan Sharma
  • Patent number: 10554301
    Abstract: Devices, computer-readable media and methods are disclosed for determining reachability for a wavelength connection in a telecommunication network. For example, a processor deployed in a telecommunication network may calculate a fiber loss on a link in the telecommunication network using optical power measurements and determine that a destination node of a wavelength connection is not reachable via a path that includes the link based upon the fiber loss of the link that is calculated. In one example, the determining is based upon a number of links in the path, an effective fiber loss for each link in the path, a penalty for nodes in the path, and an acceptable loss value. The processor may further perform a remedial action in response to determining that the destination node of the wavelength connection is not reachable via the path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Sheryl Woodward, Kathleen Tse, Martin Birk, Angela Chiu, Balagangadhar Bathula
  • Patent number: 10541748
    Abstract: An automatic power reduction (APR) system for an optical network module, including: a multi-fiber interface including a plurality of ports adapted to be coupled to one or more multi-fiber connectors; a card processor operable to detect a loss of signal on an input port of the plurality of ports and comparing the power of an associated output port to an activation threshold received by the card processor; and a module processor operable to, in the event that the loss of signal is detected on the input port and the power of the output port exceeds the activation threshold, trigger the optical network module to execute an APR routine and attenuate spectrum associated with an affected port using a wavelength selective switch coupled to the plurality of ports.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventor: Paul Chedore
  • Patent number: 10405074
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose an optical signal processing method and an optical cross-connect apparatus. The method includes: receiving, by an input port i of the optical cross-connect apparatus, a first optical signal; performing, based on the first optical signal by a transmit-end signal processing module i, first phase modulation processing and first frequency mixing processing to obtain a THz signal that carries signal information of the first optical signal; transmitting, by a transmit-end antenna i, the THz signal; receiving, by a receive-end antenna j, the THz signal; performing, based on the THz signal by a receive-end signal processing module j, second phase modulation processing and second frequency mixing processing to obtain a second optical signal that carries the signal information; and outputting, by an output port j, the second optical signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 3, 2019
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Chendi Jiang, Xinhua Xiao
  • Patent number: 10375458
    Abstract: Examples disclosed herein relate, in one aspect to a method. The method may include determining an input bandwidth capacity of a network device comprising a network device port coupled to a plurality of computing devices; based on the input bandwidth capacity; generating a management signal, the management signal indicating a set of output lanes for each of the plurality of computing devices and indicating a different wavelength for each of the set of output lanes of each of a plurality of computing devices; sending the management signal to the plurality of computing devices through an optical bus; and receiving, through the optical bus, an optical signal comprising, for each computing device, a set of output signals from the set of output lanes indicated by the management signal, each output signal being represented by a wavelength indicated by the management signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP
    Inventor: Kevin B Leigh
  • Patent number: 10368149
    Abstract: In some embodiments, a system includes a super-channel multiplexer (SCM) and an optical cross connect (OXC) switch. The SCM is configured to multiplex a set of optical signals into a super-channel optical signal with a wavelength band. The OXC switch is configured to be operatively coupled to the SCM and a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) degree. The OXC switch is configured to be located between the SCM and the ROADM degree and the OXC switch, the SCM, and the ROADM degree are configured to be included in a colorless, directionless, and contentionless (CDC) optical network. The OXC switch is configured to switch, based on the wavelength band, the super-channel optical signal to an output port from a set of output ports of the OXC switch. The OXC switch is configured to transmit the super-channel optical signal from the output port to the ROADM degree.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: Juniper Networks, Inc.
    Inventors: Kevan Peter Jones, Robert William Keys
  • Patent number: 10305588
    Abstract: There is provided a network management device including a memory in which a change rate of a transmission quality of a first optical signal to be transmitted on a first path with respect to a power of the first optical signal is stored, and a processor coupled to the memory and the processor configured to determine, based on the change rate, whether to set a second path on which a second optical signal transmits to overlap with at least a portion of a route of the first path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: FUJITSU LIMITED
    Inventors: Masatake Miyabe, Toru Katagiri
  • Patent number: 10187152
    Abstract: A method for bandwidth management in an optical broadcast network includes signaling, for a new optical broadcast service, from an originating node to all nodes in the optical broadcast network, wherein the signaling identifies a wavelength or portion of spectrum associated with the new optical broadcast service; at each of the nodes, checking for contention by the new optical broadcast service; responsive to identifying contention at one of the nodes, signaling the identified contention back to the originating node; and responsive to no contention at any of the nodes, processing the signaling, storing an update of the new optical broadcast service, and either forwarding the signaling to peer nodes or terminating the signaling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2019
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventors: Anurag Prakash, Mohit Chhillar, Dominic Richens, Hari Srinivasan
  • Patent number: 10187281
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present application provide a method and system for monitoring a service object. During operation, the system obtains resource consumption data corresponding to one or more service objects. The resource consumption data may include data indicating device resource usage. The system may then accumulate the resource consumption data in a predetermined storage object within a statistical time period corresponding to a service object. The system may sort the resource consumption data accumulated in the predetermined storage object within an update time period corresponding to the service object. The system may then load the sorted resource consumption data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2019
    Assignee: Alibaba Group Holding Limited
    Inventors: Zhuo Song, Yu Li
  • Patent number: 10122465
    Abstract: Signal processing sections selectively switch modulation/demodulation in low-efficiency modulation system and modulation/demodulation in high-efficiency modulation system, and perform digital signal processing. Parallel-side interfaces of input/output interface sections are electrically connected to the signal processing section. A serial-side interface of the input/output interface section is electrically connected to a serial-side interface of the input/output interface section. A selection section electrically connects a parallel-side interface of the input/output interface section to the signal processing section when the low-efficiency modulation system is selected, and electrically connects the parallel-side interface of the input/output interface section to a parallel-side interface of the input/output interface section when the high-efficiency modulation system is selected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2018
    Assignees: NTT ELECTRONICS CORPORATION, NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION
    Inventors: Osamu Ishida, Etsushi Yamazaki, Kazuhito Takei, Masahito Tomizawa, Hideki Nishizawa
  • Patent number: 10123100
    Abstract: An optical network transmits a wavelength division multiplexing optical signal from a transmission to a reception node via a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer and/or path cross-connect apparatuses. When optical or optical super channels made of successive optical subcarriers input from input optical fibers are routed or switched to an output optical fiber in the multiplexer and/or apparatus passed through by a wavelength division multiplexing optical signal transmitted from the predetermined transmission node to the predetermined reception node, the adjacent channels output to the same output fiber in each input fiber is collectively demultiplexed without being demultiplexed for the channels and is routed or switched to the output fiber. Channel routing paths and frequency arrangements are controlled such that the number of filtering times by a wavelength division filtering mechanism on one or both sides on the frequency axis of the channel becomes equal to or less than a predetermined value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2018
    Assignee: JAPAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AGENCY
    Inventors: Ken-ichi Sato, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Yojiro Mori, Yuki Terada
  • Patent number: 10117007
    Abstract: A routing node includes: at least one optical buffer, a switching node, and at least one transmission waveguide, where an output end of each optical buffer is connected to an input end of the switching node; each transmission waveguide is connected to an output end of the switching node. The optical buffer is configured to parse a received optical signal to obtain an identifier of a destination routing node, and send the identifier to the switching node. The switching node determines whether an output port required by the destination routing node is in an idle state or a busy state; and control the optical buffer to store the optical signal if the output port is in a busy state; or send the optical signal to the destination routing node if the output port is in an idle state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2018
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co.., Ltd.
    Inventors: Liang Song, Wei Zhang, Qinfen Hao
  • Patent number: 9641277
    Abstract: An optical signal transmission method includes: obtaining a signal identifier of data to be sent; obtaining corresponding optical frequency slot distribution information according to the signal identifier; and determining a corresponding carrier according to the obtained optical frequency slot distribution information, using the determined carrier to carry the data to be sent to generate an optical signal, and sending the generated optical signal. The optical signal transmission method provided in the present invention does not fix the optical frequency slot distribution into a wavelength identifier, the number of optical frequency slots is not limited by the wavelength identifier field length, and the data to be sent can be transmitted in an optical network by being carried on the carrier determined according to multiple optical frequency slots.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 21, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 2, 2017
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Shiyi Cao
  • Patent number: 9602636
    Abstract: High-speed processing of packets to and from a virtualization environment can be provided while utilizing segmentation offload and other such functionality of hardware such as a network interface card. Virtualization information can be added to extension portions of protocol headers, for example, such that the payload portion is unchanged. The virtualization information can be hashed and added to the payload or stream at, or relative to, various segmentation boundaries, such that the virtualization or additional header information will only be added to a subset of the segmented data frames, thereby reducing the necessary overhead. Further, the hashing of the information can allow for reconstruction of the virtualization information upon desegmentation even in the event of packet loss.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Pradeep Vincent, Michael David Marr
  • Patent number: 9584247
    Abstract: One embodiment provides a network node of a metro optical network that includes first and second optical filters. The first optical filter is configured to pass wavelength channels in a first wavelength band and block wavelength channels in a non-overlapping second wavelength band. The second optical filter is configured to block wavelength channels of the first wavelength band and pass wavelength channels of the second wavelength band. An optical splitter is configured to split a received optical signal into first and second signal portions and to direct the first signal portion to the first optical filter. An optical combiner is configured to combine output of the second optical filter with the second signal portion from the optical splitter. An optical transceiver is configured to recover data from a first wavelength channel passed by the first optical filter, and to output a second wavelength channel passed by the second optical filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2017
    Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.
    Inventor: Colin Geoffrey Kelly
  • Patent number: 9477039
    Abstract: Disclosed are structures and methods directed to waveguide structures exhibiting improved device performance including improved attenuation of scattered light and/or transverse magnetic modes. In an illustrative embodiment according to the present disclosure, a rib waveguide structure including a rib overlying a slab waveguide (or superimposed thereon) is constructed wherein the slab waveguide is heavily doped at a distance from the rib which has a very low overlap with rib guided modes. Advantageously, such doping may be of the P-type or of the N-type, and dopants could be any of a number of known ones including—but not limited to—boron, phosphorous, etc.—or others that increase optical propagation loss. As may be appreciated, the doped regions advantageously absorb scattered light which substantially improves the structures' performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Acacia Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Christopher Doerr, Long Chen
  • Patent number: 9391732
    Abstract: Optical nodes in an optical network may provide directionless, colorless, contentionless, and gridless transmission, reception, and switching of optical signals in which a non-fixed number of optical channels and a non-fixed bandwidth for each optical channel is used. Optical nodes can use the full extent of the optical bandwidth due to the absence of channel spacing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: VERIZON PATENT AND LICENSING INC.
    Inventors: Glenn A. Wellbrock, Tiejun J. Xia
  • Patent number: 9271059
    Abstract: To verify the integrity of optical paths through and among optical switches, optical signals are provided with co-propagating supplemental signals. The supplemental signals preferably have at least one characteristic which allows distinguishing one supplemental signal from another. Associated with a port of a switch, means are provided for detecting a supplemental signal and determining if the supplemental signal indicates that a desired optical signal is passing through the port as expected and desired. Means for imparting or changing the distinguishing characteristic of a supplemental signal may also be employed to facilitate verifying the passage of optical signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2016
    Assignee: VERIZON PATENT AND LICENSING INC.
    Inventors: John A. Fee, Frank A. McKiel, Jr.
  • Patent number: 9065568
    Abstract: A number of fiber optic networks, nodes, and methods are disclosed. One fiber optic network embodiment includes a network module including a star coupler for receiving a signal from a number of nodes and outputting a combined signal, including the received signals, to the number of nodes, and the number of nodes optically connected to the network module, the number of nodes including a transmit module including a first adjustable optical amplifier and a number of optical emitters, a receive module including a second adjustable optical amplifier and a number of receivers, and a controller coupled to the transmit and receive modules for adjusting the first and second optical amplifiers in response to the combined signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2015
    Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation
    Inventors: Brian L. Uhlhorn, Rick C. Stevens
  • Patent number: 9031406
    Abstract: The present invention uses digital subcarrier cross-connect switching to accomplish various network processes more efficiently. These processes include interconnecting network components, and performing optical and optoelectronic add/drop operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2015
    Assignees: University of Kansas, Board of Regents, The University of Texas System
    Inventors: Rongqing Hui, Andrea Fumagalli
  • Patent number: 9025623
    Abstract: The disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for implementing self-adaption of cross granularity in an Optical Transport Network (OTN). The method includes: acquiring an optical interface side OTN service signal which has been processed by a frame-forming chip, and performing determination on the frame header of an Optical channel Data Unit (ODU) frame of the current level in the OTN service signal; when frame-alignment is determined to be successful, performing level-by-level de-multiplexing processing on the ODU frame of the current level to obtain cross granularities of different levels, selecting output channels for the cross granularities of different levels, performing mapping processing on the output cross granularities of different levels to form fixed rate service signals, and outputting the fixed rate service signals to back board ports, where the signals are transmitted to a cross board.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: ZTE Corporation
    Inventors: Ruimin Ma, Hongbing Zou, Haiping Hao
  • Publication number: 20150086203
    Abstract: Example embodiments of the present invention relate to an optical signal processor comprising of at least one wavelength processing device, a plurality of optical amplifying devices, and a least one field programmable photonic device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2014
    Publication date: March 26, 2015
    Inventors: Mark E. Boduch, Kimon Papakos
  • Patent number: 8983291
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to data communication system and methods. More specifically, various embodiments of the present invention provide a communication interface that is configured to transfer data at high bandwidth using PAM format(s) over optical communication networks. In various embodiments, amplitude and phase of the optical wave are modulated. There are other embodiments as well.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2015
    Assignee: Inphi Corporation
    Inventors: Tom Peter Edward Broekaert, Hari Shankar
  • Patent number: 8983293
    Abstract: An optical switch fabric, including: a first set of horizontal optical waveguides receiving a plurality of wavelengths; a plurality of wavelength-selective drop optical switches associated with the first set of horizontal optical waveguides, wherein the plurality of wavelength-selective drop optical switches are each configured to drop a selected wavelength from a horizontal optical waveguide of the first set of horizontal optical waveguides to an associated vertical optical waveguide of a plurality of vertical optical waveguides; and a plurality of controllable optical switches associated with the plurality of vertical optical waveguides, wherein the plurality of controllable optical switches are each configured to direct a selected wavelength from a vertical optical waveguide of the plurality of vertical optical waveguides to a horizontal optical waveguide of a second set of horizontal optical waveguides, and wherein the second set of horizontal optical waveguides output a plurality of wavelengths.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2015
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Y. Frankel, Michael Gazier, Joseph Berthold
  • Patent number: 8977129
    Abstract: Various architectures of a multi-degree reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer with reduced contention are provided. These architectures allow the degree of contention reduction to be managed in a flexible and modular way. The degree of the node and the amount of add/drop at the node can also be managed in a flexible and modular way. This Abstract is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC
    Inventor: Trenton Gary Coroy
  • Patent number: 8977130
    Abstract: There is provided an optical transmission device, the optical transmission device including a wavelength selective switch configured to select a first optical signal having a first wavelength from an input signal of wavelength division multiplexing, an optical filter circuit configured to include an optical tunable filter having a pass wavelength that is tunable to a second wavelength of a second optical signal for passing therethrough, a splitter configured to split the input signal, a split signal split by the splitter being transferred to the optical filter circuit, and a coupler configured to couple the first optical signal selected by the wavelength selective switch and the second optical signal passed through the optical filter circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Koji Takeguchi, Kazuo Takatsu
  • Patent number: 8977121
    Abstract: An optical transport network based on multimode/multicore fibers includes a mode-multiplexer to multiplex independent data streams from one or more transmitters; a multimode erbium-doped fiber amplifier (MM EDFA) to compensate for MMF loss; a multimode optical add-drop multiplexer (MM OADM) to add and/or drop multimode channels in multimode networks; a multimode optical cross-connect; and a mode-demultiplexer to separate various mode streams to one or more receivers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
    Inventors: Ivan B. Djordjevic, Lei Xu, Ting Wang
  • Patent number: 8971706
    Abstract: Automatic discovery and verification of optical communication links as well as isolation of link failures in an optical communication system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2002
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Rockstar Consortium US LP
    Inventors: Ornan A. Gerstel, Humair Raza, Rajiv Ramaswami, Babu O. Narayanan, Robert Ward, Robert Keys, David Park, Vasant Sahay, Osama Aboul-Magd, Frederic Simard
  • Patent number: 8965203
    Abstract: The disclosure describes implementations of an apparatus including a plurality of racks, wherein each rack houses a plurality of networking devices and each networking device includes a communication port. An optical circuit switch can be coupled to each of the plurality of communication ports in one or more of the plurality of racks, and a plurality of top-of-rack (TOR) switches can be coupled to the optical circuit switch. Other implementations are disclosed and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Amin Vahdat, Hong Liu, Ryohei Urata, Xiaoxue Zhao, Chris L. Johnson
  • Patent number: 8958693
    Abstract: A wavelength selective switch includes a light input/output unit that includes an input unit and an output unit of a wavelength multiplexed light arranged in a form of an array in a first direction, a light dispersing unit that receives the wavelength multiplexed light from the input unit and disperses the wavelength multiplexed light into signal wavelengths, a light condensing element that condenses the light dispersed into the signal wavelengths, and a light deflecting element array that deflects a signal light in the first direction and a second direction, that is orthogonal to the first direction, so as to switch the light of the signal wavelengths condensed by the light condensing element to a desired output unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2015
    Assignee: JDS Uniphase Corporation
    Inventor: Koji Matsumoto
  • Publication number: 20150037032
    Abstract: An optical communications system includes a first plurality of optical components having optical ports, a second plurality of optical components having optical ports and an optical cross-connect. The optical cross-connect includes a block of a single continuous construction and material having a first side adjacent the first optical components and a second side adjacent the second optical components, and a plurality of non-intersecting, continuous waveguides formed within the block and extending from the first side of the block to the second side of the block. The refractive index of each waveguide is different than the surrounding material of the block, and each waveguide changes direction at least once within the block. The waveguides are optically aligned with the optical ports of the first optical components at the first side of the block and with the optical ports of the second optical components at the second side of the block.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 5, 2013
    Publication date: February 5, 2015
    Inventors: Qing Xu, Robert Brunner, Stephane Lessard
  • Patent number: 8923699
    Abstract: Switching architectures for WDM mesh and ring network nodes are presented. In mesh networks, the switching architectures have multiple levels—a network level having wavelength routers for add, drop and pass-through functions, an intermediate level having device units which handle add and drop signals, and a local level having port units for receiving signals dropped from the network and transmitting signals to be added to the network. The intermediate level device units are selected and arranged for performance and cost considerations. The multilevel architecture also permits the design of reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers for ring network nodes, the easy expansion of ring networks into mesh networks, and the accommodation of protection mechanisms in ring networks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Ornan Gerstel, Mauro Macchi, Stefano Piciaccia
  • Patent number: 8897133
    Abstract: A multi-stage switch fabric (SF) is provided. The multi-stage SF includes a line card chassis (LCC) and a fabric card chassis (FCC). The FCC includes a stage-1 switch element (S1), a stage-2 switch element (S2), and a stage-3 switch element (S3), where the S3 corresponds to the S1, and the S2 is coupled to the S1 and S3 respectively. The LCC includes an interface component and a line card (LC) coupled to the interface component, where the interface component is coupled to the S1 and S3 in the FCC respectively. Through the technical solution under the present invention, when a switch element generates flow control information and requires another switch element or an LC to respond to the flow control information, a timely response can be received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 14, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Yun Lin
  • Patent number: 8879915
    Abstract: An optical switching device includes plural wavelength selective switches that respectively have a first port and a plurality of second ports; and an optical coupler that has a plurality of third ports on an input-side or an output-side, respectively optically coupled to the first ports of the wavelength selective switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 4, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Takeshi Sakamoto, Kazuo Takatsu
  • Publication number: 20140321851
    Abstract: A transmission device includes: a detector to detect a head pattern indicating a head of data for each of ports that receives the data; a write controller to write the data to a memory provided for each of the ports, based on a detection timing of the head pattern detected by the detector; a determination unit to determine, among ports for each of which the head pattern has been detected by the detector, a specific port for which a total delay amount is minimum, the total delay amount being a total sum of delay amounts from the head pattern related to the specific port to each of the head patterns related to ports other than the specific port; and a read controller to read the data from the memory, based on the detection timing of the head pattern related to the specific port determined by the determination unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 24, 2014
    Publication date: October 30, 2014
    Applicant: FUJITSU LIMITED
    Inventors: Toshiharu HIROSE, Kenichi Ohyama, Akira Hashimoto, Haruhisa Fukano
  • Patent number: 8873955
    Abstract: Scheduling methods and apparatus for use with optical switches with hybrid architectures are provided. An exemplary distributed scheduling process achieves 100% throughput for any admissible Bernoulli arrival traffic. The exemplary distributed scheduling process may be easily adapted to work for any finite round trip time, without sacrificing any throughput. Simulation results also showed that this distributed scheduling process can provide very good delay performance for different traffic patterns and for different round trip times associated with current switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: Polytechnic Institute of New York University
    Inventors: Shivendra S. Panwar, Yanming Shen, Shunyuan Ye
  • Patent number: 8873962
    Abstract: A method includes determining a line rate selection for a flexible optical wavelength-division-multiplexing WDM network, determining a traffic routing in said network, and determining simultaneously a channel routing, wavelength assignment and spectrum allocation in said network based on an auxiliary graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
    Inventors: Ankitkumar N. Patel, Philip Nan Ji, Jason P. Jue, Ting Wang, Yoshiaki Aono
  • Patent number: 8867913
    Abstract: Optical Transport Network (OTN) High Order (HO) mapping systems and methods utilize pointer processing to map one HO signal into another similarly sized HO signal. An OTN HO mapping method and circuit include receiving a first HO signal at a first rate, asynchronously mapping the first HO signal into a second HO signal at a second rate, wherein the first rate and the second rate are substantially similar, translating a portion of overhead from the first HO signal to overhead of the second HO signal, utilizing pointers in the overhead of the second HO signal for frame alignment of the first HO signal, and transmitting the second HO signal containing the first HO signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventors: Sebastien Gareau, Tim Norman, Richard Wyatt, Michael Hubbard
  • Patent number: 8855487
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a method and device for obtaining the routing information of an electro-optical multi-layer network. The ports on which an optical transmitter and an optical receiver are located are determined, and the electro-optical conversion information is added to the routing information on a port of the optical layer node side or the electro layer node side on which the optical transmitter and the optical receiver are located. The electro-optical conversion information includes but is not limited to the wavelength tuning capability and signal processing capability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2014
    Assignee: ZTE Corporation
    Inventor: Gang Xie
  • Patent number: 8849111
    Abstract: A network element of a transport network has three fabrics housed within a single shelf of a telco rack, namely a packet fabric, an electrical fabric and an optical fabric. A stream of traffic including a plurality of lambdas is received at a trunk interface of such a shelf. The optical fabric in the shelf performs optical switching on the stream to replace a first lambda in the stream with a second lambda. The first lambda is converted within the shelf into an electrical signal. Also within the shelf, first frames are recovered from the electrical signal. The packet fabric in the shelf is used to perform packet switching on the first frames to generate a flow of second frames. The flow of second frames is transmitted at a client interface of the shelf.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Cyan, Inc.
    Inventors: Stephen J. West, Scott Pradels
  • Patent number: 8849115
    Abstract: The present invention provides a directionless optical architecture for reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and wavelength selective switches (WSSs). The directionless architecture utilizes a directionless wavelength switch coupled between client devices and ROADMs/WSSs to eliminate the need to hard-wire client devices to a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) network. Accordingly, client device connections can be automatically routed without manual intervention to provide a highly resilient network design which can recover route diversity during failure scenarios. Additionally, the present invention minimizes deployments of costly optical transceivers while providing superior resiliency. Further, the present invention couples the directionless optical architecture and associated optical protection mechanisms with existing mesh restoration schemes to provide additional resiliency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Ciena Corporation
    Inventors: Loudon Blair, Michael Y. Frankel
  • Publication number: 20140270767
    Abstract: A metro area network is provided that includes edge and core multiplexors each having a plurality of line ports and one or more uplink ports, a transport network carrying multiplexed traffic between the edge and core multiplexors. In a hard cross connect implementation utilizing source port tagging, a cross-connect device coupled to the core multiplexors provisions or maps communications path between the core multiplexors thereby providing preselected connectivity/mapping of two or more line ports of any of the edge multiplexors. In a soft cross connect implementation utilizing destination port tagging, a cross-connect device includes additional cross-connect multiplexors and functionality to control the destination port tagging performed in the edge, core and cross connect multiplexors thereby provisioning or mapping the desired communications path(s) between various endpoints.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 30, 2014
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Applicant: Rockstar Consortium US LP
    Inventors: Norival Figueira, Paul Bottorff
  • Patent number: 8824292
    Abstract: A cross-connect apparatus and method where the apparatus includes an interface section which divides signals from a transmission line into multiple paths to provide the signals to cross-connect sections, and multiplexes signals provided from the cross-connect sections to send out the signals to the transmission line, the cross-connect sections cross-connects the signals from the interface section to output the signals to the interface section. The cross-connect apparatus includes a control section which determines a number of paths divided by the interface section and an operation mode of the cross-connect sections, according to a line capacity occupied by the signals from the transmission line and which controls the interface section and stops an operation of a cross-connect section which does not perform cross-connect processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 2, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Matsuo
  • Publication number: 20140241720
    Abstract: A submarine network includes a submarine network with a branching unit BU for splitting or combining a signal between a main trunk path and a branch path for allowing signals from different paths to share a same fiber optic path, said BU and submarine network normally having a fixed and predetermined wavelength arrangement preventing reconfigurability of the submarine network, and a latching wavelength selective switch WSS or wavelength blocker WB in the branching unit for splitting or combining the signals between the main trunk path and branch path to enable a latching capability and enable reconfigurability of the branching unit BU, the latching WSSS being a bistable liquid crystal based material without moving parts for increased stability and lower power consumption over use of conventional mono-stable liquid crystal LC switches in a submarine network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 24, 2014
    Publication date: August 28, 2014
    Applicant: NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
    Inventors: Philip Nan Ji, Ting Wang, Ryuji Aida
  • Patent number: 8818191
    Abstract: A method for reallocating a wavelength in an optical wavelength multiplexer transmission system is disclosed. The method includes switching a supply of a first channel electric signal from a first optical transmitter device to a second optical transmitter device, the first optical transmitter device converting the first channel electric signal into an optical signal of a first wavelength, and the second optical transmitter device converting the first channel electric signal into an optical signal of a second wavelength differing from the first wavelength, and transmitting the optical signal of the second wavelength output from the second optical transmitter device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Takeshi Sakamoto, Ryosuke Goto