Highly scalable multi-granular node architecture

1. An optical switching architecture comprising:

a multiplexing stage, adapted for selectively combining component channel wavelengths from a plurality of distinct optical networks;

a first N×N cyclic arrayed waveguide grating(AWG), for cyclically routing component channel wavelengths of N received wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signals to provide thereby N first routed WDM optical signals, wherein N is an integer;

a middle stage, for selectively converting respective component channel wavelengths of said N first routed WDM optical signals to a different optical wavelength to provide thereby N first processed WDM optical signals;

a second N×N cyclic AWG, for cyclically routing component channel wavelengths of said N first processed WDM optical signals to provide thereby N second routed WDM optical signals; and

at least one feedback shuffler for receiving a waveband from the second AWG, modifying spectral allocations associated with the received waveband channels, and communicating the modified waveband to the first N×N cyclic AWG, wherein the wavelength order within a waveband is preserved; and

wherein the N received WDM optical signals of the distinct optical networks includes at least core and metro network optical signals, and said second routed WDM optical signals are provided at any selected output of the second N×N cyclic AWG.

2. The architecture of claim 1 , further comprising:

an add/drop switch that selectively drops wavelengths from the second AWG and selectively adds wavelengths to the first AWG; and

wherein the said at least one feedback shuffler further comprises:

a demultiplexer for separating the received wavebands from the second AWG;

a plurality of wavelength converters for selectively changing the wavelengths of the component channel wavelengths of the received waveband;

an nN×nN cyclic AWG, for cyclically shifting component channel wavelengths, wherein n is an integer between 1 and M/N, and wherein M is the total number of wavelengths in all wavebands; and

a multiplexer, for combining the component channel wavelengths thereby providing a shuffled waveband.

3. The architecture of claim 2 , wherein the switch comprises an optical switch.

4. The architecture of claim 2 , wherein the switch comprises an electrical switch.

5. The architecture of claim 1 , wherein an input WDM optical signal may by-pass the optical switching architecture and is transported from the second AWG having the same characteristics.

6. The architecture of claim 1 , further comprising a demultiplexer stage, wherein waveband demultiplexers and wavelength demultiplexers are able to drop a combination of wavelengths and wavebands from the second AWG.

7. The architecture of claim 1 , wherein:

the middle stage includes a plurality of tuner modules, each of the tuner modules adapted to process one WDM optical signal, each of the tuner modules comprising:

a demultiplexer, for extracting component channels from the respective WDM optical signal;

a plurality of wavelength converters, for selectively changing component channels wavelengths, and

a combiner, for combining component channels to provide a processed WDM optical signal.

8. The architecture of claim 2 , wherein the feedback shuffler includes tunable wavelength converters and fixed wavelength converters.

9. A method comprising:

combining component channel wavelengths from a plurality of distinct optical networks including at least core and metro network optical signals to provide thereby N received wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signals, wherein N is an integer;

cyclically routing component channel wavelengths of N received WDM optical signals to different optical wavelength to provide thereby N first routed WDM optical signals;

selectively converting respective component channel wavelengths of said N first routed WDM optical signals to different optical wavelength to provide thereby N first processed WDM optical signals;

cyclically routing component channel wavelengths of said N first processed WDM signals to provide thereby N second routed WDM optical signals;

shuffling wavebands of the N second routed WDM optical signals with a feedback shuffler to provide thereby shuffled wavebands; and

adding the shuffled wavebands to the N received WDM optical signals, wherein the wavelength order within a waveband is preserved.

10. An optical network comprising:

a first N×N cyclic arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) for cyclically routing wavebands of N unprocessed WDM optical signals;

a middle stage, for selectively converting respective channels of said wavebands to different optical wavelengths to provide thereby N processed WDM optical signals;

a second N×N cyclic AWG; for cyclically routing N processed WDM optical signals;

an add/drop switch for receiving wavelengths from the second AWG for dropping and selectively communicating added optical signals to the first AWG; and

at least one feedback shuffler for receiving a waveband from the second AWG, modifying spectral allocations associated with the received waveband channels, and communicating the modified waveband to the first N×N cyclic AWG, wherein wavelength order within a waveband is preserved.

11. The network of claim 10 , wherein the switch comprises an optical switch.

12. The network of claim 10 , wherein the switch comprises an electrical switch.

13. The network of claim 10 , wherein the input WDM optical signal by-passes the optical switching architecture and is transported from the second AWG having the same characteristics.

14. The network of claim 10 , further comprising a demultiplexer stage, wherein waveband demultiplexers and wavelength demultiplexers are able to drop a combination of wavelengths and wavebands from the second AWG.

15. The network of claim 10 , wherein:

the middle stage includes a plurality of tuner modules, each of the tuner modules adapted to process one WDM optical signal, each of the tuner modules comprising:

a demultiplexer, for extracting component channels from the respective WDM optical signal;

a plurality of wavelength converters, for selectively changing component channels wavelengths, and

a combiner, for combining component channels to provide a processed WDM optical signal.

16. The network of claim 10 , wherein the feedback shuffler includes tunable wavelength converters and fixed wavelength converters.

17. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

selectively dropping wavelengths from the second routed WDM optical signals to provide thereby dropped wavelengths;

selectively adding the dropped wavelengths to the N received WDM optical signals.