Patent ID: 7505686

Claim:
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.