Adaptec 2001 Annual Report Download - page 5

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5
protocols make it easier for complex high-speed data traffic in the form of electrical and optical
signals to be sent and received reliably and efficiently - - whether intra-office, across the
country, or internationally.
One industry standard that packages information into a fixed-size cell format for transportation
across networks is ATM or Asynchronous Transfer Mode. Many service providers deploy
equipment that handles this protocol because it can support voice, video, data, and multimedia
applications simultaneously.
Another established industry standard is called SONET or Synchronous Optical N etwork for
data communication over fiber optic systems. This is used in the Americas and parts of Asia,
with the equivalent standard in the rest of the world being SDH or Synchronous Digital
Hierarchy. Many of the long-haul and ultra long-haul fiber optic systems operate at higher
speeds such as 10 gigabits per second. In the metro area of the netw ork, signals are transmitted
primarily at rates between 155 megabits per second and 2.5 gigabits per second.
In addition to using SONET to increase the bandw idth in their networks, many system
operators have also deployed equipment that uses dense wave division multiplexing. Rather
than transmitting a single light signal over an optical fiber, dense wave division multiplexing
allows many different light signals (each of a different wavelength) to be transmitted
simultaneously. By deploying this technique at higher transmission rates, carriers have
increased capacity to move more signals across transmission lines.
In some service provider networks, a traffic bottleneck can occur where the high-speed long-
haul traffic is handed off to networking equipment in the metro area. In general, less
investment has been made to enhance the infrastructure in the metro area and as a result, many
of these systems have insufficient capacity to handle the increased traffic.
In response, many OEM s are designing faster and more complex equipment to handle the
higher volumes in the netw ork. This equipment must be able to accommodate various
protocols and formats, including cell-based ATM and packet-based Internet Protocol (IP).
While IP packets are larger and can hold more data than ATM cells, service providers can have
difficulty providing the same quality of service with IP because it is not optimized for time-
sensitive signals such as video and voice services.
Another protocol that is used extensively in local area netw orks and is now being deployed in
the wide area network is Ethernet. Because many systems operators are familiar with Ethernet,
it is now transitioning into the wide area of the netw ork at higher speeds so that Ethernet
packets can be sent inter-office in a more efficient manner.
To accommodate these different protocols and growing demand for services, many service
providers are requiring OEM s to provide more complex, integrated solutions in a shorter time
period. This, coupled with the rising cost of custom semiconductors, has resulted in the OEM s
outsourcing more of their communications integrated circuit requirements to companies such
as PM C-Sierra. A t the same time, some of the OEMs have undergone corporate restructurings
and have few er resources and technical staff to dedicate to internally designed custom
solutions.