SDH Frame Structure - Basics
SDH Frame Structure - Basics
This page of SDH tutorial covers SDH frame structure and explains STS-1
SONET/SDH frame including interleaving concept, transport overhead and
payload overhead part of the SDH frame in depth.
The figure describes basic SONET STS-1 frame consisting of 9 rows and 90
columns. SONET frame is composed of 810 octets (bytes). Transmission is
carried out row wise from left to right and from top to bottom. Bits are transmitted
serially.
The STS-1 frame of SDH is composed of section overhead, transport overhead,
payload overhead and data part. The frame starts with fixed A1/A2 bit pattern of
0xf628 used for bit/octet synchronization. SONET/SDH is referred as octet
synchronous. The first three columns of SONET frame is referred as transport
overhead. The next 87 columns of the frame are referred as Synchronous
payload envelope (SPE). Payload overhead is part of SPE.
STS-1 data rate is about 51.84 Mbps. Let us examine how this has been
achieved. Every SONET/SDH frame repeats once every 125 micro-sec. 90
columns in 9 rows and 8000 times per second and 8 bits per octet give us data
rate of 51.84 Mbps. STS is the abbreviation of Synchronous Transport Signal.
STS-1 is referred as OC-1(Optical Carrier) after scrambling is done on STS-1.
SDH
name
Line Rate
(Mbps)
Synchronous payload
envelope rate(Mbps)
Transpor
rate
STS-1
None
51.84
50.112
1.728
STS-3
STM-1
155.52
150.336
5.184
STS-12
STM-4
622.08
601.344
20.736
STS-48
STM-16
2488.32
2405.376
84.672
STS-192
STM-64
9953.28
9621.504
331.776
STS-768
STM256
39813.12
38486.016
1327.104
Interleaving in SONET/SDH
STS-3 frame is formed using three STS-1 frames with the help of interleaving
technique. The interleaving is octet type i.e. A1 octet from 1st,2nd and 3rd STS-1
frame is taken first then A2 octet from all these three frames are taken and
transmitted.
Transport Overhead
Framing octets (A1,A2) :
These two octets are used to determine start of the SDH frame. A1 is 0xf6 and
Payload Overhead