Patent ID: 7706643

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an optical splitter configured to tap off a portion of a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) signal in a WDM communication system employing a WDM grid having N wavelengths; a cyclic arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) configured to receive said tapped off portion of said WDM signal as an input and further configured to output non-overlapping interleaved sets of N/P wavelengths via each of P output ports, wherein P is greater than two; a 50/50 optical splitter comprising an input port and first and second output ports, wherein said input port is configured to be coupled to one of said P output ports and wherein the 50/50 optical splitter is configured to split one of said non-overlapping interleaved sets of N/P wavelengths received via said one of said P output ports for output to each of said first and second output ports, respectively; and a first and a second thin film filter (TFF) in parallel wherein the first TFF is configured to be coupled to said first output port of the 50/50 optical splitter and the second TFF is configured to be coupled to the second output port of the 50/50 optical splitter, and wherein each of the first and second TFFs is configured to select one wavelength from said one of said non-overlapping interleaved sets of N/P wavelengths.