
2
S3057
MULTIRATE (OC-48/24/12/3/GBE) SONET/SDH/ATM TRANSCEIVER
October 31, 2000 / Revision E
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 2 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 optical
and back with no overhead. It is responsible for trans-
mitting 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 synchronization,
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 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-Nsignal is
made up of Nbyte-interleaved STS-1 signals. The
optical counterpart of each STS-Nsignal is an optical
carrier level-Nsignal (OC-N). The S3057 chip sup-
ports up to the 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 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 operation, refer to the
Bellcore SONET Standard document.
Table 1. SONET Signal Hierarchy
Figure 2. SONET Structure
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
Functions
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