Optical networks are designed to provide fast and efficient data communications. However, data communication volumes are growing exponentially, and energy consumption is growing with it. Also, state-of-the-art electronic switches have an inherent latency. This is caused by transceivers, the network stack needed to identify packets and addresses, and the store-and-forward mechanism.
A potential answer to this is optical switches. Although the new generation of optical switches can switch in nanoseconds, still packets and addresses need to be identified. This is done using transceivers and network stacks. This leads to similar switching times as for classical switches. This still costs latency and energy and is therefore not in line with the objectives.
Switching datastreams in an optical switch require that they are started and stopped again. This causes synchronization latency.

Cool Optics is working on a solution in which these issues are addressed using its Lock & Link technology combined with an ALL-Optical switch and without a transceiver. This shall outperform the current solutions.

The system consists of a Cool Optics Switch Management Systems based on an all Optical switch and the Cool Optics Lock&LinkTM technology.
The extreme speed at which Lock and Link can switch data streams on and off, makes it possible to pass the switch infrastructure without noticeably interrupting to the optical signal. This means that the optical signal does not need to be converted and extra latency and energy consumption are avoided.

By integrating with Lock & LinkTM, the re-synchronization with the next NIC can be considerably improved, which also results in an improvement in latency