With the explosive growth of data traffic in communication networks

traditional electrical switches will be difficult to satisfy the requirement of broadband network development due to their limited bandwidth and high-power consumption.With optical switches

data can be directly exchanged in the optical domain without conversion.All-optical switching has many advantages such as high speed

wide bandwidth

transparency

low power consumption and low cost.It can be applied in the next generation all-optical switching networks

data center and high-performance computer interconnect networks.This paper introduces the development status and core technologies of integrated optical switches

including the implementation of optical switches using silicon dioxide

III-V semiconductor materials and silicon materials.Among them

the silicon based integrated optical switches have the advantages of compact size

low power consumption

and compatibility with Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor（CMOS）technologies

which are suitable for massive low-cost production that can potentially find rich market applications.This paper focuses on the implementation of the elementary devices for silicon based optical switches and several representative optical switch fabrics.The methods for the switch state monitoring and switch chip package are also covered.