
3
S3044
SONET/SDH/ATM OC-48 1:16 RECEIVER
December 8, 2000 / Revision H
SONET OVERVIEW
Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) is a standard
for connecting one fiber system to another at the opti-
cal level. SONET, together with the Synchronous
Digital Hierarchy (SDH) administered by the ITU-T,
forms a single international standard for fiber inter-
connect between telephone networks of different
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 3 shows the layers and their functions. Each of
the layers has overhead bandwidth dedicated to ad-
ministration and maintenance. The photonic layer
simply handles the conversion from electrical to opti-
cal 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 moni-
toring. The line layer is responsible for the reliable
transmission of the path layer information stream car-
rying voice, data, and video signals. Its main functions
are synchronization, multiplexing, and reliable trans-
port. The path layer is responsible for the actual trans-
port of services at the appropriate signaling rates.
Data Rates and Signal Hierarchy
Table 1 contains the data rates and signal designa-
tions of the SONET hierarchy. The lowest level is the
basic SONET signal referred to as the synchronous
transport signal level-1 (STS-1). An STS-N signal is
made up of N byte-interleaved STS-1 signals. The
optical counterpart of each STS-N signal is an opti-
cal carrier level-N signal (OC-N). The S3044 chip
supports OC-48 rate (2.488 Gbps).
Frame and Byte Boundary Detection
The SONET/SDH fundamental frame format for STS-48
consists of 144 transport overhead bytes followed by
Synchronous Payload Envelope (SPE) bytes. This
pattern of 144 overhead and 4176 SPE bytes is re-
peated nine times in each frame. Frame and byte
boundaries are detected using the A1 and A2 bytes
found in the transport overhead. (See Figure 4.)
For more details on SONET operations, refer to the
Bellcore SONET standard document.
Table 1. SONET Signal Hierarchy
Figure 3. SONET Structure
Figure 4. STS-48/OC-48 Frame Format
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
9
48 A1
Bytes
48 A2
Bytes
A1 A1
A1 A1
A2 A2
A2 A2
Transport Overhead 144 Columns
144 x 9 = 1296 bytes
Synchronous Payload Envelope 4176 Columns
4176 x 9 = 37,584 bytes
125
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