Patent · US Expired

Telecommunications switch architecture

US5576873A · kind A · utility

60Cited by
3References
19Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 3, 1995
Grant dateNov 19, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 3, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04Q2011/0052
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Telecommunications switch architectures and switching methods based on the principle of replication/broadcasting some or all of the incoming data from each input-switch port to all output switch ports. The replicated data is transferred to the output ports either by the respective output port reading directly from a relevant address in an input memory, or by transferring the content of all or part of the input memory data simultaneously en bloc and in parallel to a plurality of output memories, with each output port then taking the data intended therefor. The input and output data is in serial form but transferred in parallel form. The data can be replicated optically or electronically. In particular, the input data can be formatted as spatially arranged pages in the optical domain by spatial light modulators (SLM) and switched by an image replicating optical switch, such as a matrix-matrix switch, to an output plane at which a second SLM device converts the data back to serial form. The SLM's may be based on FELC/VLSI technology. A mixture of ATM and STM data can be switched in a single arrangement.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.