SELF-CLOCKING SCHEME FOR BIT SYNCHRONIZATION IN ULTRAFAST PACKET-SWITCHING TRANSPARENT OPTICAL NETWORKS

A challenging issue in ultrafast packet switching transparent optical networks is fast acquisition of synchronisation at the bit level for p acket demultiplexing. In the Letter a novel scheme is proposed, in whi ch a timing reference is transmitted along with each data packet in th e form of a clock comb. This comb is extracted at each node reached by the packet for header recognition and, at the destination, for readin g of that particular packet. The synchronisation problem is solved wit h no need for a phase locked loop, at the expense of an increased effe ctive packet length.