With the rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements of optical communication networks, compact and low-cost large-scale optical switches become necessary. Silicon photonics is a promising technology due to its small footprint, cost competitiveness, and high bandwidth density. In this paper, we demonstrate a 12×12 silicon wavelength routing switch employing cascaded arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) connected by a silicon waveguide interconnection network on a single chip. We optimize the connecting strategy of the crossing structure to reduce the switch’s footprint. We develop an algorithm based on minimum standard deviation to minimize the port-to-port insertion loss (IL) fluctuation of the switch globally. The simulated port-to-port IL fluctuation decreases by about 3 dB compared with that of the conventional one. The average measured port-to-port IL is 13.03 dB, with a standard deviation of 0.78 dB and a fluctuation of 2.39 dB. The device can be used for wide applications in core networks and data centers.

We demonstrate a new synchronization method for the White Rabbit system. Signals are transmitted in a single mode fiber in both directions with the same light wavelength. Without the complex calibration process of the fiber asymmetry parameter, the new method reduces the effect of chromatic dispersion and improves the synchronization accuracy. The experiment achieves timing synchronization accuracy below 200 ps over 50 km fiber constructed by different companies’ fiber spools. The proposed method would make White Rabbit technology immune to the chromatic dispersion of fiber links and can be applied to long distance synchronization.