A High Speed Fiber Optic Switched Network

W. A. Rosen; T. A. Kline; E. A. Alfonsi; W. J. Bermingham

doi:10.1117/12.963369

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23 January 1990 A High Speed Fiber Optic Switched Network

W. A. Rosen, T. A. Kline, E. A. Alfonsi, W. J. Bermingham

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Proceedings Volume 1178, Optical Interconnects in the Computer Environment; (1990) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.963369
Event: OE/FIBERS '89, 1989, Boston, United States

Abstract

A high speed serial fiber optic switched network is described which is intended for such applications as sensor/signal processor or computer interconnects. Communication is completely asynchronous and any channel may be operated at any data rate up to 1 Gb/s. The network is based on a gallium arsenide electronic crossbar switch, a common network interface for each node, and commercial optical data links. To implement the network interface function, an ASIC chip which will contain both an encoder and decoder section has been designed and is being fabricated in gallium arsenide. The encoder will accept 8- or 16-bit parallel words at any data rate up to 1 Gb/s and encode them into a 4B5B serial bit stream. The decoder reverses this process so that the network is completely transparent to the user. Handshake protocol is via a simple DATA READY/ACKNOWLEDGE scheme and the network interface may also transmit a small number of command words.

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W. A. Rosen, T. A. Kline, E. A. Alfonsi, and W. J. Bermingham "A High Speed Fiber Optic Switched Network", Proc. SPIE 1178, Optical Interconnects in the Computer Environment, (23 January 1990); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.963369

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