Patent ID: 7305186

Claim:
A network operable to direct optical signals, the network comprising: a scheduler engine operable to generate one or more control signals; one or more control lasers coupled to the scheduler engine, each of the one or more control lasers operable to generate an optical control signal based at least in part on a portion of the one or more control signals, wherein the optical control signal comprises at least a portion of information of the one or more control signals; a transmission star fabric coupled to the one or more control lasers, the transmission star fabric operable to distribute the optical control signal to a plurality of line cards, each of the plurality of line cards comprising one or more optical transmitters operable to receive at least a portion of the optical control signal and to communicate one or more optical output signals to the transmission star fabric, wherein the one or more optical output signals are communicated based at least in part on the portion of the information of the one or more control signals; wherein the transmission star fabric is operable to combine at least some of the optical output signals into combined optical output signals and to direct at least a portion of the combined output signals to an input buffer; and wherein the one or more control signals generated by the scheduler engine control firing of the one or more transmitters using a scheduling algorithm that operates to avoid collisions between the optical output signals in the transmission star fabric.