Performance Consideration for Building the Next Generation Multi-service Optical Communications Platforms

Abstract

The network service providers require cost-effective multi-service platforms that can meet their customer’s diverse, dynamic, and demanding application requirements. Multi-service platforms require flexible, configurable, versatile, scalable, and multi-purpose VLSI solutions. The emerging ASIC solutions, for these applications, are appropriately termed Network Processors (NPs) or “systems on a chip.” Many of the emerging NPs are limited to only processing cell/packet-based traffic with functionalities distributed over several chip components. Onex’s intelligent TDM, ATM, Packet (iTAPTM) system can support TDM-based and cell/packet-based traffic on only two chip components. In this article, we provide a short background on the network processors followed by an overview of iTAPTM’s system architecture. The iTAPTM’s distributed dynamic bandwidth allocation mechanism will be described. A simulation model of some of the algorithms implemented in the iTAPTM is also provided. Finally, we will state the concluding remarks and elaborate on the issues that require further investigation.