In what they say is the first demonstration of this transmission technique, researchers have succeeded in sending data packets to a destination specified in the address without having to convert the optical signals to electrical signals. The researchers include Naoya Wada at the Optical Communications Technologies Laboratory of the Ministry of Communications and Posts (Osaka, Japan) and Kenichi Kitayama at the Osaka University Graduate School Department of Engineering, and colleagues.
In the experiment, address information was expressed in a code used in optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA) technology. OCDMA is an optical version of CDMA, which is a familiar technology in cellular phones. During the test, an 8-bit address was sent to its correct destination in 35 ps (no data were attached because the experiment was theoretical). This speed translates into processing 100 million packets in one second--approximately 1000 times faster than electrical routing. Although this experiment focused on making address identification optical, the group hopes to develop an integrated optical routing device by transforming other components such as switch-control components to an optical format.—Courtesy O plus E magazine, Tokyo