The authors examine the physical design issues associated with terabit/second switching systems, particularly with regard to the customer access portion of the switch. They determine the physical design requirements in the areas of backplane interconnections, integrated circuit packaging, and circuit board technology and identify areas where existing- or near-future physical design technologies are inadequate to meet the requirements of this application. A new 3D interconnection architecture that solves some of the problems encountered at the backplane level is suggested. It is also suggested that multichip module technology will help meet some of the speed and density requirements at the chip packaging level. Some of the system-level consequences of the proposed model are discussed.>

A functional reference architecture that is intended to meet future switching needs for BISDN (broadband integrated services digital networks) is presented. This includes the ability to support a large variety of potentially complex multimedia services, provide integrated control and operations over all switching resources, accelerate feature introduction, and improve switching system reliability and quality. Open interfaces, particularly for service modules and network-based service logic and operations systems, can support the rapid deployment of new services in a switch-dependent manner. How elements in a next-generation switching system may operate together for a simple call setup in BISDN is presented.>