Scalability of Optical Interconnects Based on Microring Resonators

Abstract — This paper investigates the use of optical microring resonators as switching elements in large optical interconnection fabrics. We introduce a simple physical-layer model to assess scalability in crossbar- and Benes-based architectures. We also propose a new dilated switching element that improves scalability to build fabrics of several Tbps of aggregate capacity. Index Terms — Optical interconnects, Microring resonators. I