Technology and Design Considerations for a Very-High-Speed Fiber-Optic Data Bus

The techology for very-high-speed fiber-optic data transmission is reviewed, and an assessment is made of the data rate limitations for a ring bus. Maximum data rates for single-channel transmission are estimated to he in the five-ten Gbit/s range, but bus capacity can be increased to 100 Gbits/s or higher with parallel interconnections or carrier-frequency multiplexing. A recirculating fiber loop is proposed as a buffer between the high data rate bus and terminals which operate at relatively low speeds. A bus terminal design based on this concept is suggested.