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. 28, 2015
Filed:
Dec. 31, 2003
Vasant Sahay, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Tal Lavian, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bruce Schofield, Tyngsboro, MA (US);
Vasant Sahay, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Tal Lavian, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bruce Schofield, Tyngsboro, MA (US);
RPX Clearinghouse LLC, San Francisco, CA (US);
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention present a method and apparatus for photonic line sharing for high-speed routers. Photonic switches receive high-speed optical data streams and produce the data streams to a router operating according to routing logic and produce optical data streams according to destination addresses stored in the data packets. Each photonic switch can be configured as one of a 1:N multiplexer or an M:N cross-connect switch. In one embodiment, optical data is converted to electrical data prior to routing, while an alternate embodiment routes only optical data. Another embodiment transfers large volumes of high-speed data through an optical bypass line in a circuit switched network to bypass the switch fabric thereby routing the data packets directly to the destination. An edge device selects one of the packet switched network or the circuit switched network. The bypass resources are released when the large volume of high-speed data is transferred.