We discuss the introduction/implementation of optical IP routers, then we introduce a novel scheduling algorithm incorporating void filling and aimed at optical routing of asynchronous, variable packet length packets. We describe its structure and discuss the complexity issues. Albeit introduced with the purpose of cancelling expensive optical synchronization, we argue that this approach represents the most viable all-optical approach for implementing packets-over-SONET (IP-centric scenario). We also present simulations under self-similar traffic conditions which point to the inefficiency of optical buffering to combat the effects of self-similarity, and we outline alternative strategies for proper buffer dimensioning.

We have implemented the digital section of a wireless local area network (WLAN) demodulator in a reconfigurable interface card called the PCI Pamette. The entire baseband section of the demodulator has been implemented using the Pamette and a simple analog to digital mezzanine board. This is the second version of the demodulator, the first being a card-based design using a mixture of discrete and reconfigurable logic. The Pamette design took far less time to complete than the card-based one. Moreover, the reconfigurable substrate is much more versatile. We describe the Pamette implementation and discuss our experiences with the two different design styles and technologies.