HYC New Product – 1×N MEMS Optical Switch

With the rapid development of optical fiber, the traditional communication devices with electricity as the core is hardly to meet the needs of high-speed and large-capacity optical communication network. MEMS optical switch has become one of the important devices in all optical communication network due to its small size, easy integration and large capacity.

MEMS optical switch is based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical System(MEMS) technology, using the micromirrors to control and switch the optical path. Its function is shown in the following figure:

MEMS Optical Devices — MEMS OXC

Application of OXC
Optical cross connect is a matrix switch usually with N×N ports. The OXC can be used to construct a CDC ROADM (Colorless, Directionless, and Contentionless Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer), as shown in Fig.1 [1].

Fig.1 CDC ROADM based on WSS and OXC [1]

OXC Constructed by 1×N Optical Switches
The OXC can be constructed by 1×N optical switches, as shown in Fig.2. It requires 2N 1×N optical switch to construct a N×N OXC. Thus the size and cost of the OXC module increase rapidly with the incensement of port number N. OXC of this structure is usually limited to below 32×32 ports.