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:
Jul. 09, 2002
Filed:
May. 28, 1998
Amir Lahat, Kibbutz Givat Brenner, IL;
Yackov Sfadya, Kfar Saba, IL;
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An ATM switch which utilizes an all optical switching fabric to perform switching functions. The switch is based on fiber optics and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies. The switch utilizes a centrally located optical switch fabric with multiple distributed interface cards. The switch module comprises an N X N passive star coupler which functions to pass the optical signal input present at any of its input ports to all of its output ports. Each output port has associated with it a unique wavelength. An optical filter set to the wavelength functions to block all wavelengths except for the wavelength associated with that particular output port. The ingress portion of each receive/transmit interface module comprises a tunable optical transmitter that is set to the wavelength corresponding to the desired destination output port. Cells are transmitted to the switch module on that wavelength and only the optical receiver associated with that wavelength receives the optical signal, the other output ports functioning to filter the signal. In this fashion, ATM cells received are switched to any output port utilizing WDM optical processing.