
2
S3067
MULTIRATE (OC-48/24/12/3/GBE) SONET/SDH/ATM TRANSCEIVER WITH FEC
October 26, 2000/ Revision A
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
administration 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 moni-
toring. 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 reli-
able 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 transport
signal level-1 (STS-1). An STS-Nsignal is made up of
Nbyte-interleaved STS-1 signals. The optical counter-
part of each STS-Nsignal is an optical carrier level-N
signal (OC-N). The S3067 chip supports up to the OC-
48 rate with different FEC modes.
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 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–48/OC–48 Frame Format
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
μ
sec
s
s
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