Paralle-to-serial converter using metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors and its application to bypass/drop packet switching

We present a parallel-to-serial converter (PSC) for high-speed optical packet processing. We constructed a photonic PSC from electrical PSCs with a novel and simple circuit scheme and electroabsorption modulators (EAMs). By effectively combining electrical multiplexing with optical multiplexing, the photonic PSC can generate a 40-Gbit/s 16-bit optical packet from 16 parallel channels of electrical signals at packet rates of 40 MHz. The photonic PSC has several advantages, including support for asynchronous burst signal input, compactness, and low power consumption. The electrical PSC has also been applied to a label comparator for bypass/drop self-routing of 10-Gbit/s asynchronous optical packets.