Designing Packet Over SONET/SDH (POS) Hardware Application Note 
Size: 281 KB
Date: April 2000

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As a result of the evolution of wire-speed layer-3 switching from enterprise networks to the core of public data networks, Packet Over SONET/SDH (POS) has emerged as the technology of choice for interconnecting high-speed backbone routers. POS is deployed in the line cards of Gigabit and Terabit routers, and is implemented in hardware in order to handle wire speeds ranging from 155 Mb/s to 10 Gb/s.

This application note provides information about POS and the issues to consider when designing POS hardware, including the following topics:

• How POS Works
• POS Implementation Issues
• Test Case 1: Send Maximum Stuffing-Ratio Traffic
• Test Case 2: Vary the Inter-Frame Gap by Octet Increments
• Test Case 3: Send Minimum-Size Packets at Full Rate
• Reference Information