Abstract

Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is a promising switching and transport technology for carrying multimedia traffic in broadband ISDN (B-ISDN). With ATM, end-to-end information is transported as fixed-size packets, called cells; this provides the flexibility needed for multimedia traffic, which ranges from kilobits per second to gigabits per second. ATM is now being introduced in LANs, MANs and WANs to carry data traffic and will soon penetrate widely into public networks carrying voice and pictures as well as data. The throughput of ATM networks will grow rapidly as the provision of fiber-optic subscriber loops stimulates the demands for broadband multimedia services. To meet this increasing demands, higher speed ATM switches will be needed.

© 1995 Optical Society of America