On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 06:59:20PM -0400, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: > Where's Noel Chiappa when you need him? > > > (2) The new protocol will use variable-length address for the Host > > portion, such as used in the addresses of CLNP, > > This also was considered during the IPv6 design phase, and the router > designers had a collective cow, as it makes ASIC design a whole lot more > interesting. And back then, line speed was a lot lower than it is now... > > Not saying it can't be done - but you're basically going to have to do CLNP > style handling at 400Gbits or 1Tbit. Better get those ASIC designers a *lot* > of caffeine, they're gonna need it...
Except that these will be pure photonic networks, and apart from optical delay lines for your packet buffer you'd better be able to make a routing (switching) decision while few bits of the header have streamed by your photonic router circuit. There is no time for any table look-ups, obviously. And optical gates are *really* expensive, so better use few of them. And don't add too many gate delays, too. Above describes your setting for the next protocol. There is not a lot of leeway in design space, I'm afraid.
