Comparison in power consumption of MVMC and BENES optical packet switches

In this paper we compare the average energy consumption per bit of the Matrix-Vector Multiplier Crossbar (MVMC) and BENES Optical Packet Switches realized in Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) technology. Sophisticated analytical models are introduced to evaluate the power consumption versus the offered traffic, the main switch parameters, and the used device characteristics. We show that for large size, the BENES switch is more effective in power consumption than MVMC switch when the power consumption of turned off SOAs is taken into account. As a matter of example for 64 × 64 switches supporting 64 wavelengths and offered traffic equal to 0,8, the average energy consumption is 4, 60 · 10 -1 nJ/bit and 2,62 · 10 -1 nJ/bit for MVMC and BENES switches respectively.