Physical Layer

ATM Physical Layer

Two pieces (sublayers) of physical layer:
Transmission Convergence (TC): adapts ATM layer above to PMD sublayer below Physical Medium Dependent (PMD): depends on physical medium being used
TC sub-layer Functions
Header Error Control Cell Rate decoupling Cell delineation Cell Scrambling Transmission Frame Adaptation

HEC (Header Error Control)

Single-bit error correction Multiple-bit error detection Out of 5 byte in header, 5th byte is used for HEC Contains the checksum calculated over the first 4 bytes of cell header using G(x) = x8+x2+x+1 Sender computes checksum over 4 bytes of header and places it in the 5th byte Receiver recomputes the checksum (called as Syndrome) Any difference between Syndrome & received checksum is indication of error.

HEC Contd
HEC specifies 2 modes for receiver Operation Correction mode Detection mode

Cell Rate Decoupling

If cells are transferred over a synchronous physical medium (e.g. SONET), a fixed no. of cells have to be periodically transmitted If no user cells, then TC layer inserts dummy cells (idle cells) to fill time slots allotted for user data It allows the rate of outgoing cells to match the link rate Idle cell contains a specific bit pattern which is invalid for user cell
0x00 0x00 0x00 0x01 } ---- idle cell (5th byte valid HEC) Remaining 48 bytes --- recurring pattern 01101010. It must be removed by physical layer at receiving end.

Format of idle cell

Cell Delineation
To identify start and end of a cell (method by which the ATM hardware determines the boundary of the cells) Disadvantage of usual method to detect cell boundaries (bit stuffing, flags)
Increased overhead

So, in ATM network, HEC is used for cell delineation

 An initial bit by bit search is made for a correct HEC sequence (HUNT state) Once located, the particular cell boundary is noted (PRESYNC state) and the search continues to determine whether the following pattern is correct. (Cell by cell) Once no incorrect HEC is received within a set number of cells (delta), the SYNC state is declared. In this state, synchronization is not relinquished until a set number of consecutive incorrect HEC patterns (alpha) are received.

 state diagram of the HEC cell delineation method

Cell Scrambling
Undesired patterns in data are changed at the source and the changes are reverted back at destination To improve security & robustness of HEC delineation algo.

Transmission Frame Adaptation

Cells may be carried on the PL either within a frame or just transported over the physical link as a bit sequence. When frame transport a structure is defined. Cells are mapped into this structure and carried across the network. This mapping is called transmission frame adaptation (framed physical layer Structure)

PMD sublayer Functions

Timing and Synchronization Encoding and Transmission

Timing and Synchronization

Timing relationship must exist between sender and receiver
Explicit (both maintain a clock of common frequency) Implicit (obtained by special encoding scheme like Alternate Mark Inversion(AMI))

Encoding and Transmission

Bits may be put on physical link in a number of ways
On copper wire
To uniquely represent 0s and 1s
2 different voltage levels (binary encoding) Different frequencies

In fiber-optics cables
Through the presence and absence of photons

Physical Layer Standards for ATM

2 main classes of such standards:
PDH (Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy)
Plesiochronous means nearly at the same rate TDM based Hierarchy

SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy)

Digital transitions occur at exactly the same rate For optical fibers