Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq:VTSS) introduced the next generation of products in the TimeStream family of SONET/SDH switch fabric and line card devices. TimeStream products enable increased density of OC-48 and OC-192 interfaces, allow implementation of 2.5Gb/s backplane connectivity, provide support for VT1.5 grooming, deliver higher density STS-1/STM-1 grooming and enable future support for OC-768.
Support for grooming at both the VT1.5/TU-12 and STS-1/STM-1 is crucial in the metropolitan environment. Core and metro networks are groomed down to the STS-1/STM-1 level, providing bandwidth for connections from DS-3/E3 to OC-192c. However, the metro edge continues to be influenced by the need to groom at both the STS-1/STM-1 and VT1.5/TU-12 level, reflecting the tremendous momentum of leased line voice, T1s and frame relay connections.
The TimeStream product family addresses the needs of the all-optical transport applications in the network such as next generation SONET/SDH ADMs at the optical edge, Multiservice Provisioning Platforms (MSPPs) in metro environments, and high density STS-1/STM-1 based optical crossconnects in the core.
TimeStream provides an end-to-end solution for terminating OC-3 to OC-192 optical interfaces and grooming the traffic to the customer required granularity.
Combining the TimeStream product family with other Vitesse switching solutions, such as GigaStream packet/cell switch fabrics, allows vendors to construct equipment capable of switching and routing optical, SONET/SDH, IP, ATM, and Ethernet traffic in applications ranging from the optical edge to the core network.
All TimeStream components include backplane clock and data recovery circuitry ensuring a "glueless" interface between devices. Backplane protocols utilize SONET/SDH conventions and not proprietary formats, allowing customers to easily integrate Vitesse components with existing hardware architectures. Features unique to the TimeStream family allow modification of bytes on the backplane for in-band communication and extensive on-board performance telemetry processing, thus simplifying the design of the control software.
This generation of Vitesse components also includes hardware-based protection switching, allowing vendors to construct equipment that can recover from fibre cuts or equipment failures within the guidelines of Telcordia GR-1400, the standard demanded by RBOCs and CLECs alike.
Typically, system software is required to detect fibre cuts and optical failures and make protection decisions to heal the network. The new TimeStream switch components automatically detect failures and restore the network within a millisecond. System designs constructed with competing solutions are limited by performance of software for protection switching.
Hardware-based protection switching is the only way customers can continue to meet sub-millisecond protection switching requirements as the number of optical ports continues to grow.
The VSC9186 supports OC-192c and quad OC-48 optical interfaces and supports all SONET/SDH features at the section, line, and path level necessary for accurate switching and grooming. This device integrates working and protection fabric interfaces and serial backplane I/O with integrated clock and data recovery.
The VSC9186 also provides a single chip solution for optical transport applications, where four 2.5Gb/s optical interfaces need to be combined into a single 10Gb/s fibre. Samples of the VSC9186 are available now and are packaged in a 720CCGA. In quantities of 1,000, the VSC9186 is priced at $850.00 each.
The VSC9185 provides SONET/SDH grooming for up to 3072 STS-1/STM-1 tributaries. It integrates 64 2.5Gb/s or 622Mb/s I/Os with on-board clock and data recovery and support for advanced I/O equalization techniques.
Both the VSC9182 and VSC9185 use a proprietary design technique free of the limitations of conventional time-space-time architectures employed by competing devices, this simplifies software design and allows the use of the advanced hardware protection schemes pioneered by Vitesse with its development partners. The unique strictly non-blocking design of the VSC9185 allows it to be used in more efficient TDM switch architectures than competitive solutions, cutting the number of chips required in Clos architectures by half.
Samples of the VSC9185 will be available in fourth quarter 2001. The VSC9185 is packaged in a 520BGA and is priced at $1,200.00 each in quantities of 1,000.
OC-48 and OC-192 optical deployment at the metro edge demands that legacy T1 switching solutions scale to the size demanded by the new fat optical pipes. The VSC9187 and VSC9188 provide a chipset solution for grooming 5Gb/s of VT1.5 traffic or 10Gb/s of ring based VT1.5 traffic.
The VSC9188 provides SONET and VT path termination, while the VSC9187 performs VT1.5 switching and grooming on up to 6,048 VT1.5s, which is equivalent to over 6,000 T1 lines.
Hardware-based protection switching provides all the intelligence for a full implementation of Bellcore GR-1400 UPSR standards, allowing Vitesse customers to radically increase time to market by eliminating the need for developing complex software-based protection algorithms. The VSC9187/VSC9188 are now sampling. The VSC9187 is packaged in a 360CCGA and the VSC9188 in a 552CCGA.
The three devices necessary to perform 10Gb/s of grooming are priced at $1,600 a chipset.
The VSC9180 is ideal for migrating lower speed backplane interconnects to 2.5Gb/s in SONET/SDH Add/Drop Multiplexing (ADM), Time Slot Interchange (TSI), or wavelength crossconnect applications. This backplane transceiver supports dual 2.5Gb/s working and protection backplane 1+1 protection.
The VSC9180 serializes four STS-12/STM-4 signals, or byte interleaved SONET/SDH/OTN data from 4-bit 622MHz or 16-bit 155MHz parallel busses onto redundant 2.5Gb/s serial backplane outputs. Application notes supporting the design of 2.5Gb/s backplanes are available from Vitesse. The VSC9180 is sampling now and is available in a 195BGA package. It is price at $105 each in quantities of 1,000.
Vitesse also has a comprehensive evaluation platform designed to demonstrate all of its SONET/SDH and forward error correction (FEC) products, including framers, pointer processors, time slot interchange (TSI) switch fabrics, physical layer components, and 2.5Gb/s backplane devices. This evaluation platform is available for customer demonstrations of desired configurations.
About Vitesse:
Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. is a designer and supplier of high-performance integrated circuits (ICs) used in next generation networking and optical communications equipment. For more information, visit www.vitesse.com.