64-channel byte interleaver for gigabit SDH transmission systems

A new circuit configuration of a large-scale byte interleaver that forms a multigigabit STMN signal directly from STM-1 signals (155.52 Mbit/s) is proposed. The circuit based on the conventional bit interleaver, is uniquely equipped with N/8 row-column exchangers. 64-channel byte multiplexing from 125 Mbit/s to 8 Gbit/s is demonstrated for the first time. The proposed method paves the way for the future large-scale STM-N byte interleaver needed in the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH).