A photonic ATM backbone network

A photonic ATM backbone network that uses package-multiplexing is proposed to transfer ATM cells over ultra-high-speed trunk lines. The large-capacity lines that will be required to support broad-band services in the 21st century will have difficulty handling signals of more than 10 Gbps with electrical ATM switching systems because of size and power consumption constraints. A practical alternative that uses current technology is a photonic switching system that combines optical switches and electrical control circuits. The bottleneck in such a system would be the header processing capability of the electrical circuits. This proposed network first packs several cells into large packets called “packages” and then transfers the packages over ultra-high-speed optical lines. This photonic ATM backbone network will make it possible to build flexible and efficient cell transport networks