The performance of data- and telecommunication equipment must keepup with the increasing network speed. At the same time, one must dealwith the internal interconnection complexity, often growingexponentially with the number of ports. Therefore, new interconnectiontechnologies to be used internally in the equipment are needed. Opticalinterconnection technology is a promising alternative and much work hasbeen done. In this paper, a number of optical and optoelectronicinterconnection architectures are reviewed, especially from a data- andtelecommunication equipment point-of-view. Three kinds of systems foradoption of optical interconnection technology are discussed: (i)optical cross connects (OXCs), (ii) switches and routers with some kindof burst switching, and (iii) switches and routers which redirecttraffic on the packet or cell level. The reviewed interconnectiontechnologies and architectures are discussed according to theirsuitability of adoption in the three mentioned system types
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