CONTROL DATA CANADA                                X3T9.2/88-112
Interoffice Memorandum
 
 
   Date: August 15, 1988
 
     To: X3T9.3, X3T9.2 Members
 
   From: Roger Cummings
 
Subject: HIGHLIGHTS OF 2ND FIBER OPTIC WORKING GROUP
 
 
Please find attached a set of highlights of the Fiber Optic 
Working meeting that was held on last Thursday and Friday. These 
highlights are intended for use at the X3T9.2 and X3T9.3 plenary 
meetings only - a full set of meeting minutes with attachments 
will still be mailed to all of the Working Group attendees.
 
Regards
 
 
 
 
 
 
Roger Cummings
Principal Engineer, I/O and Peripherals
Systems and Strategies Group
Control Data Canada Ltd.
1855 Minnesota Court
Mississauga, Ontario L5N 1K7
Canada
 
Phone:  (416) 826-8640 x3332
  Fax:  (416) 826-8640 x3476
Telex:  (650) 289-5060

     HIGHLIGHTS OF SECOND FIBER OPTIC WORKING GROUP MEETING
 
 
 
The second meeting of the Fiber Optic Working Group was hosted by
Peter Dougherty of Unisys at the Sunnyvale Hilton on August 11 
and 12, 1988. Over 50 people attended.
 
The agenda had been defined by Dal Allan of ENDL Consulting to 
reflect the current goal of the Working Group, which is the 
gathering of information on fiber-optic components and existing 
fiber-based interfaces. To this end the following presentations 
were made:

1)  Greg Chesson of Protocol Engines presented a overview of
the project that is defining both a transport-level protocol,
and the hardware to implement it in real-time i.e. within the
time taken to receive a packet. One of the chief applications
seen for this technology is in real-time gateways. It was noted
that the first silicon is expected to operate at FDDI speeds.

2) Jim Kevern of AMP presented an introduction to Fiber Optics 
which covered a number of the basic physical mechanisms
including refraction, dispersion, reflection and modal
distortion as well as comparing the different types of fiber and
couplers. A description of the FDDI reference model was
particularly interesting.
 
3) Ron Soderstrom of IBM presented a tutorial on Fiber Optic 
transmitters and receivers and then went on to describe the 
ongoing project in Rochester, MN to quantify the characteristics 
of CD-ROM lasers for use in communication links. Particularly 
interesting was a detailed description of both current packaging 
options and possible future trends.

4) Marc Brooks of CDR Systems then briefly presented their SCSI 
extender product one version of which uses a fiber optic link.
 
5) Del Hanson of Hewlett Packard presented an overview of IEEE 
802.6 activities, with particular reference to the SONET physical
topology.
 
6) Kaushik Akkapeddi of AT&T Bell Labs presented their parallel 
fiber optic connector technology which is capable of terminating 
both fiber ribbon cables and individual cores.
 
7) Tony Salthouse of ICL presented the Macrolan high performance 
Fiber Optic network/input-output product that ICL has been 
delivering since 1984. Descriptions of the topology and link 
layer protocol were particularly informative.
 
8) Randy Huggins of Hewlett Packard described the new HP-FL Fiber
Optic Link that is used to connect "remote" disc cabinets to the 
HP 9000 Series 800 computer systems.
 

The meeting then concluded with a brief discussion of possible 
topologies, with considerable interest being expressed in 
switched as well as bus or ring systems.
 
Dal Allan emphasized at the closing of the meeting that the 
objective of the next meeting would be to define the fuctional 
requirements. The provisional dates for this meeting were set as 
September 26 & 27 but the location and host are not finalized.