Patent ID: 7536103

Claim:
An optical switching system comprising: input ports adapted to receive respective optical multiplex input signals each consisting of spectral channels carried by respective wavelengths, output ports, and a routing device adapted to switch the spectral channels received by a plurality of input ports selectively to respective output ports selected as a function of a command, wherein a selection module is a device having one input and a plurality of outputs, and is adapted to switch spectral channels received at its input selectively to respective outputs of said module as a function of their respective wavelengths and as a function of a command signal, and said routing device comprises: a first stage comprising a plurality of selection modules whose inputs constitute respective input ports of said switching system, a second stage comprising at least one first selection module whose outputs constitute respective output ports of said switching system, and an intermediate stage for coupling the input of said first selection module of said second stage both to a first output of a first selection module of said first stage and to a first output of a second selection module of said first stage.