XRT75L00D Datasheet, PDF (68/92 Pages) Exar Corporation – E3/DS3/STS-1 LINE INTERFACE UNIT WITH SONET DESYNCHRONIZER

XRT75L00D
E3/DS3/STS-1 LINE INTERFACE UNIT WITH SONET DESYNCHRONIZER
REV. 1.0.2
span thousands of miles, traverse many different pieces of equipments, and even cross International
boundaries; in practice, the SONET/SDH network is NOT synchronized to a single clock source.
In practice, the SONET/SDH network can be thought of as being divided into numerous "Synchronization
Islands". Each of these "Synchronization Islands" will consist of numerous pieces of SONET Terminal
Equipment. Each of these pieces of SONET Terminal Equipment will all be synchronized to a single Stratum-1
clock source which is the most accurate clock source within the Synchronization Island. Typically a
"Synchronization Island" will consist of a single "Timing Master" equipment along with multiple "Timing Slave"
pieces of equipment. This "Timing Master" equipment will be directly connected to the Stratum-1 clock source
and will have the responsibility of distributing a very accurate clock signal (that has been derived from the
Stratum 1 clock source) to each of the "Timing Slave" pieces of equipment within the "Synchronization Island".
The purpose of this is to permit each of the "Timing Slave" pieces of equipment to be "synchronized" with the
"Timing Master" equipment, as well as the Stratum 1 Clock source. Typically this "clock distribution" is
performed in the form of a BITS (Building Integrated Timing Supply) clock, in which a very precise clock signal
is provided to the other pieces of equipment via a T1 or E1 line signal.
Many of these "Synchronization Islands" will use a Stratum-1" clock source that is derived from GPS pulses
that are received from Satellites that operate at Geo-synchronous orbit. Other "Synchronization Islands" will
use a Stratum-1" clock source that is derived from a very precise local atomic clock. As a consequence,
different "Synchronization Islands" will use different Stratum 1 clock sources. The up-shot of having these
"Synchronization Islands" that use different "Stratum-1 clock" sources, is that the Stratum 1 Clock frequencies,
between these "Synchronization Islands" are likely to be slightly different from each other. These "frequency-
differences" within Stratum 1 clock sources will result in "clock-domain changes" as a SONET signal (that is
traversing the SONET network) passes from one "Synchronization Island" to another.
The following section will describe how these "frequency differences" will cause a phenomenon called "pointer
adjustments" to occur in the SONET Network.
9.3.3 Causes of Pointer Adjustments
The best way to discuss how pointer adjustment events occur is to consider an STS-1 signal, which is driven by
a timing reference of frequency f1; and that this STS-1 signal is being routed to a network equipment (that
resides within a different "Synchronization Island") and processes STS-1 data at a frequency of f2.
NOTE: Clearly, both frequencies f1 and f2 are at the STS-1 rate (e.g., 51.84MHz). However, these two frequencies are
likely to be slightly different from each other.
Now, since the STS-1 signal (which is of frequency f1) is being routed to the network element (which is
operating at frequency f2), the typical design approach for handling "clock-domain" differences is to route this
STS-1 signal through a "Slip Buffer" as illustrated below.
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