Sliceable router with packet over optical OFDM transmission

1. A sliceable router, comprising:

a. a forwarding engine to forward packets based on a plurality of virtual packet interfaces;

b. control packet queues coupled to the forwarding engine;

c. a routing engine coupled to the forwarding engine that disseminates each virtual interface routing information independently and simultaneously;

d. wherein the virtual interfaces share an optical orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OOFDMA)-based programmable transceiver for interface virtualization, wherein each virtual packet interface with different IP address works as one physical transmission pipe and wherein the routing engine provides a guaranteed bandwidth for each virtual link, and changeable in real-time manner through signaling or routing protocols and wherein the routing engine splits one high-speed optical link into multiple low-speed virtual links in a router for the purpose of bandwidth virtualization (bandwidth sliceable); and

e. one or more conventional physical packet interfaces coupled to the forwarding engine;

f. a virtual link controller coupled to the virtual packet interfaces;

g. a plurality of encoders coupled to the virtual link controller, each encoder coupled to a sub-carrier mapping unit for mapping the virtual packet interfaces to sub-carriers in OOFDMA transmission;

h. a plurality of decoders coupled to the virtual link controller, each decoder coupled to a sub-carrier demapping (demodulator) unit for demapping sub-carriers to the virtual packet interfaces in OOFDMA transmission;

i. an OOFDMA transmitter coupled to the sub-carrier mapping unit; and

j. an OOFDMA receiver coupled to the sub-carrier demapping unit (demodulator).

2. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the virtual packet interface comprises a router-packet over optical OFDMA transmission technique.

3. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the virtual packet interface supports M virtual interfaces with N sub-carriers in one optical OFDMA physical link.

4. The sliceable router of claim 1 , comprising a packet over optical OFDMA interface transmitter.

5. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein each sub-carrier mapping unit comprises a programmable modulation formats mapping unit.

6. The sliceable router of claim 4 , comprising an OOFDMA transmitter including:

a frequency-to-time domain converter (IFFT);

a cyclic prefix unit coupled to the frequency-to-time domain converter to provide symbol gap;

a parallel to serial converter (P/S) to convert parallel data into serial data;

a digital to analog converter (D/A) coupled to the parallel to serial converter; and

an optical modulator coupled to the D/A.

7. The sliceable router of claim 1 , comprising a packet over optical OFDMA interface receiver.

8. The sliceable router of claim 7 , comprising an OOFDMA receiver coupled to the OFDMA, including:

a. a optical receiver for optical to electrical (O/E) conversion coupled to an OFDMA link;

b. an analog to digital converter (A/D) coupled to the optical receiver;

c. serial to parallel converter (S/P) to convert serial data into parallel data.

d. a time to frequency domain converter (FFT) coupled to serial to parallel converter (S/P);

e. a sub-carrier correlator unit coupled to the time to frequency domain converter (FFT);

f. a plurality of demodulators (i.e., sub-carrier demapping unit) coupled to the sub-carrier correlator unit.

9. The sliceable router of claim 7 , comprising:

b. an optical receiver for optical to electrical (0/E) conversion coupled to an OFDMA link;

c. a time to frequency domain converter (FFT) coupled to serial to parallel converter (S/P);

d. a frequency to time domain converter (FFT) coupled to the optical receiver;

e. a sub-carrier correlator unit coupled to the time to frequency domain converter (FFT);

f. a plurality of demodulators coupled to the sub-carrier correlator unit and

g. a virtual link controller coupled to the decoders; and

h. a plurality of virtual interfaces coupled to the virtual link controller.

10. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein each decoder comprises an FEC decoder.

11. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein each sub-carrier demapping unit comprises a demodulator.

12. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the OOFDMA-based programmable transceiver uses an adaptive link level to support multiple packet encapsulations.

13. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the packets comprise IP packets or non-IP packets.

14. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the packets comprises jumbo packets.

15. The sliceable router of claim 1 , comprising an adaptive mapping structure of virtual interfaces to sub-carriers for packet over optical OFDMA transmission interface.

16. The sliceable router of claim 14 , wherein each entry is maintained locally by the sliceable router.

17. The sliceable router of claim 14 , comprising a virtual interface index providing the virtual interface identification and the associated FIFO identification.

18. The sliceable router of claim 14 , wherein each virtual interface is configured as an IP address with a mask.

19. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the packet over optical OFDMA transceiver is combined with a wavelength switching unit for providing multi-granularity dynamic circuit switching.

20. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein the physical packet over optical OFDMA interface is sliceable for dynamically mapping packet flows onto the sub-carriers of optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing transmission.

21. The sliceable router of claim 1 , wherein each virtual interface within a physical optical OFDMA transmission interface forms a bandwidth-variable virtual link with the adjacent sliceable router.