Optoelectronic systems and methods for inspection of optically encoded data

1. A system, comprising:

a splitter configured to receive a first optical signal carrying first data and generate a first optical signal copy and second optical signal copy;

at least one optical processing path that includes

at least one optical encoder configured to transform the first optical signal copy into a second optical signal carrying the first data and an additional optical feature not present in the first optical signal,

at least one optical modulator configured to optically modulate the second optical signal according to a compare data to generate an optical match signal that indicates matches between the compare data and the first data, and

at least one photodetector configured to generate an electrical match signal in response to the optical match signal.

2. The system of claim 1 , further including:

an optical-electrical interface configured to receive the second optical signal copy and generate first data therefrom; and

buffer circuits configured to store the first data.

3. The system of claim 2 , further including:

buffer control circuits configured to control the disposition of first data stored in the buffer circuits in response to the electrical match signal.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein:

the buffer control circuit is configured to

in response to the electrical match signal having a first value, freeing the buffer from storing the first data, and

in response to the electrical match signal having a first value, designating the stored first data as data for processing.

5. The system of claim 2 , further including:

the first data comprises an optical packet; and

a packet processor coupled to the buffer circuits and configured to process optical packet data stored in the buffer circuits.

6. The system of claim 1 , further including:

an optical switch having at least one input and a plurality of outputs, the optical switch configured to selectively enable the second optical signal copy to propagate down at least one output in response to the electrical match signal.

7. The system of claim 1 , further including:

an optical multiplexer (MUX) coupled to receive the second optical signal copy at a MUX input, and configured to selectively enable an optical signal path between the MUX input and one of a plurality of MUX outputs in response to a match result from the at least one optical processing path; wherein

the match result is selected from the group of: the optical match signal and the electrical match signal.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein:

the optical MUX includes a microring resonator corresponding to each one of the plurality of optical outputs.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein:

the second optical signal copy includes a burst header packet followed by a burst data packet.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein:

the optical MUX is configured to, once the optical signal path is enabled between the MUX input and the selected MUX output, pass a burst data packet from the MUX input to the MUX output.

11. A method, comprising:

splitting a first optical signal carrying first data to generate a first optical signal copy and second optical signal copy;

by operation of an optical encoder, transforming a first optical signal copy into a second optical signal carrying the first data with an additional light feature not present in the first optical signal;

modulating the second optical signal with at least one optical modulator according to a compare data to generate an optical match signal that indicates matches between the compare data and the first data; and

generating an electrical match signal with at least one photo detector in response to the optical match signal.

12. The method of claim 11 , further including:

by operation of an optical-electrical interface, receiving the second optical signal copy and storing first data from the second optical signal copy in buffer circuits.

13. The method of claim 12 , further including:

controlling the disposition of the first data stored in the buffer circuits according to the electrical match signal.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein:

controlling the disposition of the first data includes

in response to the electrical match signal having a first value, freeing the buffer from storing the first data, and

in response to the electrical match signal having a first value, designating the stored first data as data for processing.

15. The method of claim 14 , further including:

the first data comprises an optical packet; and

processing data of the optical packet in response to the first data being designated as data for processing.

16. The method of claim 11 , further including:

switching the second optical signal copy from an input optical path to at least one of a plurality of output optical paths in response to the electrical match signal.

17. The method of claim 11 , further including:

multiplexing the second optical signal copy between a MUX input and one of a plurality of MUX outputs in response to a match result; wherein

the match result is selected from the group of: the optical match signal and the electrical match signal.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein:

multiplexing the second optical signal copy includes controlling a microring resonator corresponding to each MUX output.

19. The method of claim 17 , wherein:

the second optical signal copy includes a burst header packet followed by a burst data packet.

20. The method of claim 19 , further including:

generating the match result from the burst header packet.