Abstract
In this thesis, we consider a class of constructions of fault-tolerant optical 2-to-1 first-in first-out (FIFO) multiplexers that was studied in one of the authors’ previous work. Such constructions use a feedback network consisting of an (M + 2) × (M + 2) optical crossbar switch and M fiber delay lines with delays d1, d2, . . ., dM and can tolerate up to F broken fibers, where d1, d2, . . ., dM satisfy the condition in (A2) in Chapter 1 and 0 <= F <= M − 1. We show some properties of the fiber delays in an optimal (in the sense of maximizing the buffer size) construction among this class of construction. We also obtain a closed-form expression for the asymptotic construction efficiency of an optimal construction among this class of construction.