Control-channel based fiber-ribbon pipeline ring network

In this paper, we propose a control-channel based ring network built up of fiber-ribbon point-to-point links. One of the fibers in each link forms part of the control-channel ring, over which medium access control information is sent immediately before data transmissions. This increases performance of the network. High throughputs can be achieved in the network due to pipelining, i.e., several packets can be traveling through the network simultaneously but in different segments of the ring. The network can meet high performance demands in, e.g., massively parallel signal processing systems, which is shown by example in the paper. Also, real-time demands can be met using slot reserving. The network, called CC-FPR (Control-Channel based Fiber-ribbon Pipeline Ring), can be built today using fiber-optic off-the-shelf components, and a prototype is currently under development. The increasingly good price/performance ratio for fiber-ribbon links indicates a great success potential for the proposed kind of network.Copyright © 1998 IEEE. Reprinted from the MPPOI 1998 proceedings. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of the University of Halmstads's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to pubs-permissions@ieee.org. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.