Patent ID: 7317873

Claim:
An optical packet switching system for performing optical packet transmission, the system comprising: input line cards for generating port connection requests for connecting input ports and output ports and for sending optical packets; an optical packet switch section including semiconductor optical amplifiers as gate switches multistage-connected on paths along which the optical packets sent from the input line cards are transmitted for performing optical packet switching by broadcasting the optical packets to a plurality of gate switches, by selecting the optical packets by ON/OFF gating operation of the gate switches, and by absorbing noise signals which flow along non-selected paths by putting gate switches at a final stage into the OFF state; a switch control section for exercising centralized control over the optical packet switching, and for exercising ON/OFF drive control over the gate switches in the optical packet switch section on the basis of the port connection requests so as to generate requested paths; and output line cards for receiving the optical packets sent by the switching and for outputting the optical packets from output ports.