Performance Analysis for Gigabit Ethernet Communication Network

under Various Data Rates and Switching Structures

Shyh-Lin Tsao* and Jun-Yi Wu

Optical Fiber System Laboratory, Institute of Electro-Optical Science and Technology,
National Taiwan Normal University, 88, Ting-Choui Rd., Sec. 4, Taipei, Taiwan 116, R.O.C.

ABSTRACT
This paper reports recent work on gigabit Ethernet interconnection communication traffic analysis. We proposed
and demonstrated the system concept of gigabit Ethernet communication. 1.25Gbps, 10Gpbs and 40Gpbs gigabit
Ethernet interconnection networks are considered for computer communications. Various switching structures, such as
crossbar, double crossbar (Dcrossbar) , Modified Dilated Benes (MDB), General MDB (GMDB), Benes , Dilated Benes
(Dbenes) , Tree architecture , Simplified tree (Stree) , Extended baseline network (Ebaseline) are analyzed for searching
the optimal performance of gigabit Ethernet communication. The numerical results for computation information
transferring can be applied to search a best strategy for gigabit Ethernet communication networks interconnections.

Keywords: gigabit Ethernet, optical switch, fiber networks, interconnection

1. INTRODUCTION

No doubtly, Ethernet is the most popular wireline technology for high data rate network interconnection today. Its
popularity and growth are evident from the accelerated standardizations: 10 Mb/s in 1983, 100 Mb/s in 1995, 1 Gb/s in
1998, and 10 Gb/s in 20021. Therefore, research and development of 40-Gb/s optical Gigabit Ethernet networks is
continuing to be quite active2. Today, there are a large necessity in the transmission capacity of local area networks
(LAN’s) required for computer interconnection applications. This has led to considerable interest in gigabit per second
(Gb/s) local area networks (LAN’s) for building local area backbone interconnection links.
However, some impact of the switching networks can degrade the gigabit Ethernet network interconnection. So the
choice of switching structures is important in gigabit Ethernet communication networks. In this paper, we analyze the bit
error rate 1.25Gbps, 10Gbps and 40Gpbs network for applying in the optical Gigabit Ethernet switching
interconnections. As shown in Fig. 1, we set up the system diagram of the Gigabit Ethernet communication network
with considering various optical switching network structures. Finally, we compare the various data rate and switching
structures to search the best performance of the Gigabit Ethernet communication switching networks.

*jimmyslt@cc.ntnu.edu.tw; phone: 886-2-29350349; fax: 886-2-29350382

Photonic Devices and Algorithms for Computing VI, edited by Khan M. Iftekharuddin, 305
Abdul Ahad S. Awwal, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 5556 (SPIE, Bellingham, WA, 2004)
0277-786X/04/$15 · doi: 10.1117/12.559447
 2. THEORETICAL MODEL

This section will derive the necessary equation to compute bit error rate (BER) in gigabit Ethernet communication
network under various data rates and switching structures. There are several noises contributor in the optical
communication system including channel crosstalk, thermal noise, shot noise, amplified stimulated emission (ASE) 3.
Interchannel-interference of the WDM transmission due to crosstalk should be considered4. Therefore, we consider the
effect of thermal noise, shot noise and crosstalk of switching network in order to compute BER in this system.
Equations of the noise parameters in the system can be written as

σ thermal
2
= 4 KTB (1)

σ shot
2
= 2qI ph B (2)

2
 Pr 
σ 2
sw − cx = R  (3)
 X 

Ps
X = (4)
Pc
where
B = Electrical bandwidth
ηq
R = Receiver responsively ;( )(A/W);
hν
η = Quantum efficiency of the photodiode
I ph = Average current of the photodiode
q = Electron charge
hν = Photon energy
Ps = Signal power
Pc = Power of intrinsic crosstalk
Pr = Receiver power
k = Boltzmann’s constant
T = Temperature (K)
The variance terms refer to the thermal noise ( σ thermal ), shot noise ( σ shot ) and effective noise of switching network

( σ sw −cx ), respectively. The BER of our system is expressed as5

1 −Q 2

BER = e 2
(5)
2π Q

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and
S
Q= , (6)
2× σ 2
thermal + σ shot
2
+ σ sw
2
− cx

with S = RMPs , (7)

where M is APD multiplication factor.

Several 2×2 switching elements can be monolithically integrated to achieve a 8×8 switching network. There are several
optical switching networks we considered in this paper, such as crossbar, double crossbar (Dcrossbar)6, Modified
Dilated Benes (MDB), General MDB (GMDB), Benes7, Dilated Benes (Dbenes)8, Tree architecture9, Simplified tree
(Stree)10, Extended baseline network (Ebaseline)11. Each of these architectures has different characteristics, as shown in
Fig. 2.
We use the equation (4) to analyze the BER of gigabit Ethernet communication networks under various data rates and
switching structures. The next section will be discussed related the simulation results of network performance.

3. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF SEVERAL SWITCHING NETWORK STRUCTURES UNDER

VARIOUS DATA RATES

Table I shows the simulation parameters for analyzing our designed gigabit Ethernet communication system. Each of the
loss of the switching element of our design optical switching network structure is set at 0.1dB. The MUX and DeMux of
the Gigabit Ethernet communication networks have 1.2dB loss. We assumed switching element with crosstalk 0.01% for
the bar states and the cross state crosstalk 0.02%. We analyzed network with eight channels in the range of 1310 nm to
1315.6 nm, with 0.8 nm channel separation. The transmission distance is 10 km with single mode fiber (G.652).
We compare the bit error rate at various optical switching networks and data rate. The light power source range is set at
150µW to 250µW under data rate 1.25Gbps as shown in Fig. 3. We find that the crossbar switching network has lower
BER than other optical switching network. The Benes switching network has better performance (BER=1.87×10-22) at
the light power 150µW. The light power source range is set at 150µW to 250µW under data rate 10Gbit/s as shown in
Fig. 4. The crossbar switching network still has worst performance (BER=1.6×10-10) compared with other optical
switching networks when the light power is 250µW. We find that the simplified Tree switching network has better
performance at data rate 10Gbps. We neglect MUX, DeMUX and SMF at the simulation data rate 40Gbps. The light
power source range is set at 50µW to 150µW under data rate 40Gbps as shown in Fig. 5. The performance of the
simplified Tree switching network still has better performance compared with optical switching networks at data rate
40Gbps.

4. CONCLUSION

In this paper, we compare various data rate and switching structure for analyzing gigabit Ethernet networks. According
to the simulated value observed, the worst case is the crossbar optical switching network on gigabit Ethernet

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 5556 307

 communication network. In this paper, there are crossbar, MDB, double crossbar and GMDB of switching network
when the value of BER is higher than 10-15 at the light power 150µW. The simplified tree switching network reaches the
value of BER lower than 10-15 when the light power is higher than 175µW. We find the simplified Tree switching
network has good performance while data rate increased.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work is supported in part by the National Science Council under contract NSC93-2213-E-155-012, NSC93-2219-
E-003-001, NSC93-2622-E-003-001-CC3, NDL-93S-C004, NDL-93S-C076 and the National Taiwan Normal
University under contract no. ORD93-1 and no. 92091020.

REFERENCES

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IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 8, pp. 794-801, 1990.
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Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 771-778, 1997.

308 Proc. of SPIE Vol. 5556

 MUX
DeMUX MUX
λ1
λ2
λ3
λ4
λ5
λ6
λ7
λ8

8×8
Optical switch network structure

DeMUX
PD

BERT

Single mode fiber

Fig. 1. The schematic diagram of the Gigabit Ethernet communication network using various optical switching network structures

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 5556 309

 Output

Input

Fig.. 2(a). An 8 x 8 extended baseline switching network

Input Output

Fig. 2(b). An 8 x 8 dilated Benes switching network

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Input Output

Fig. 2(c). An 8 x 8 modified dilated Benes switching network

Input Output

Fig. 2(d). An 8 x 8 GMDB switching network

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 Input

Output

Fig. 2(e). An 8 x 8 crossbar switching network

Input Output

Fig. 2(f). An 8 x 8 Benes switching network

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 Input

Output

Fig. 2(g). An 8 x 8 Double crossbar switching network

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 parameter symbol value
Loss of switching element Loss 0.1dB
Loss of MUX and DeMux Lossmux 1.2dB
wavelength of input light λ 1310 nm
Channel space ∆λ 0.8 nm
Length of SMF L 10 km
Light power source Ps 150~250 µw
Data rate Br 1.25Gbps, 10Gbps, 40Gbps
Table I The parameters for simulation of various gigabit Ethernet switching networks.

0
10
Benes
Crossbar
Double crossbar
-5
10 Extended baseline
GMDB
MDB
Simpilified tree
10
-10 Tree
BER

dilated Benes

-15
10

-20
10

-25
10

-30
10
150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250
Power (µW)
Fig. 3. BER versus light power of various optical switching networks under 1.25Gbps

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 0
10

-5
10

-10
10
BER

-15
10

-20 Benes
10 Crossbar
Double crossbar
Extended baseline
GMDB
-25
10 MDB
Simpilified tree
Tree
dilated Benes
-30
10
150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250
Power (µW)
Fig. 4. BER versus input power of various optical switching networks under 10Gbps
0
10

-5
10

-10
10
BER

-15
10

-20
10 Crossbar
Double crossbar
Extended baseline
GMDB
-25
10 MDB
Simpilified tree
Tree
dilated Benes
-30
10
50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150
Power (µW)
Fig. 5. BER versus light power of various optical switching networks under 40Gbps

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