The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 07, 1998
Filed:
Jan. 16, 1996
Janet Lehr Jackel, Holmdel, NJ (US);
Bell Communications Research, Inc., Morristown, NJ (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus providing reducing crosstalk in optical cross-connects by configuring unused switching elements into a common switch state. The optical cross-connect may be a 2.sup.N .times.2.sup.N cross-connect which includes a plurality of dilated 2.times.2 switches each having a number of switch elements. A group of the switch elements connected between one or more inputs and one or more outputs of the cross-connect are suitably configured to provide one or more desired optical signal paths through the cross-connect. Unused cross-connect switch elements which are not part of any desired optical signal path are configured such that any unused switch elements in a given dilated 2.times.2 switch are placed in a common cross or bar switch state. The resulting cross-connect outputs will include at most one second order crosstalk term, as compared to conventional switch configurations in which a cross-connect output may have up to N second order crosstalk terms.