
2
S3028
SONET/SDH/ATM OC-3/OC-12 TRANSCEIVER
December 13, 1999 / Revision H
SONET OVERVIEW
Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) is a stan-
dard for connecting one fiber system to another at
the optical level. SONET, together with the Synchro-
nous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) administered by the
ITU-T, forms a single international standard for fiber
interconnect between telephone networks of differ-
ent countries. SONET is capable of accommodating
a variety of transmission rates and applications.
The SONET standard is a layered protocol with four
separate layers defined. These are:
Photonic
Section
Line
Path
Figure 2 shows the layers and their functions. Each of
the layers has overhead bandwidth dedicated to admin-
istration and maintenance. The photonic layer simply
handles the conversion from electrical to optical and
back with no overhead. It is responsible for transmitting
the electrical signals in optical form over the physical
media. The section layer handles the transport of the
framed electrical signals across the optical cable
from one end to the next. Key functions of this layer
are framing, scrambling, and error monitoring. The
line layer is responsible for the reliable transmission
of the path layer information stream carrying voice,
data, and video signals. Its main functions are syn-
chronization, multiplexing, and reliable transport.
The path layer is responsible for the actual transport
of services at the appropriate signaling rates.
Data Rates and Signal Hierarchy
Table 1 contains the data rates and signal designations
of the SONET hierarchy. The lowest level is the basic
SONET signal referred to as the synchronous trans-
port signal level-1 (STS-1). An STS-Nsignal is made
up of N byte-interleaved STS-1 signals. The optical
counterpart of each STS-N signal is an optical car-
rier level-Nsignal (OC-N). The S3028 chip supports
OC-3 and OC-12 rates (155.52 and 622.08 Mbit/s).
Frame and Byte Boundary Detection
The SONET/SDH fundamental frame format for STS-
12 consists of 36 transport overhead bytes followed
by Synchronous Payload Envelope (SPE) bytes.
This pattern of 36 overhead and 1044 SPE bytes is
repeated nine times in each frame. Frame and byte
boundaries are detected using the A1 and A2 bytes
found in the transport overhead. (See Figure 3.)
For more details on SONET operations, refer to the
Bellcore SONET standard document.
Elec.
STS-1
STS-3
STS-12
STS-24
STS-48 STM-16
CCITT
Optical
OC-1
OC-3
OC-12
OC-24
OC-48 2488.32
Data Rate (Mbit/s)
51.84
155.52
622.08
1244.16
STM-1
STM-4
STM-8
Table 1. SONET Signal Hierarchy
Figure 2. SONET Structure
Figure 3. STS–12/OC–12 Frame Format
9
12 A1
Bytes
12 A2
Bytes
A1 A1
A1 A1
A2 A2
A2 A2
Transport Overhead 36 Columns
36 x 9 = 324 bytes
Synchronous Payload Envelope 1044 Columns
1044 x 9 = 9396 bytes
125
μ
sec
L
L
0 bps
End Equipment
Payload to
SPE mapping
Maintenance,
protection,
switching
Optical
transmission
Scrambling,
framing
Fiber Cable
End Equipment
Section layer
Photonic layer
Line layer
Path layer
Path layer
Section layer
Photonic layer
Line layer
Layer Overhead
(Embedded Ops
Channel)
Functions
576 Kbps
192 Kbps