FIBRE CHANNEL

Physical And Signaling Interface (FC-PH)

Introduction

▪ Fibre Channel provides a general transport channel for Upper Level

Protocols (ULPs) such as Intelligent Peripheral Interface (IPI) and
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) command sets, the High-
Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) data framing, IP (Internet
Protocol), IEEE 802.2, and others.
▪ The channel protocol is divided into layers [ FC0 – FC1 – FC2 – FC3 –
FC4 ] .
Introduction

▪ FC0 : the physical portions of the Fibre Channel including the fibre, connectors, and optical and
electrical parameters for a variety of data rates and physical media.
▪ FC1 : defines the transmission protocol which includes serial encoding , decoding and error control.
▪ FC2 : defines the signaling protocol which includes the frame structure and byte sequences .
▪ FC3 : defines set of services which are common across multiple ports of a node (works as middle
layer)
▪ FC4 : is the highest layer where mapping to upper level protocols ULPs occurs .
▪ FC0 – FC1 – FC2 are integrated into FC-PH
Structure
▪ FC is logically a bidirectional
point-to-point serial data
channel.
▪ Physically , FC can be an
interconnection of multiple
communication points (
called N-ports) ,
interconnected by switching
network called a Fabric .
Structure

▪ FC0 : consists of transmission media, transmitters, and

receivers and their interfaces.
▪ FC1 : The transmission code (FC-1) used is 8B/10B
▪ FC2 : specifies the rules, and provides mechanisms needed to
transfer blocks of data end to end. FC-2 defines a suite of
functions and facilities available for use by an FC-4. This suite
of functions and facilities may be more than what a given FC-4
may require. Based on their needs, an FC-4 may choose only a
subset of these functions and facilities.
FC-0
▪ The FC-0 level of FC-PH describes the Fibre Channel link. The FC-0 level covers a variety of media
and the associated drivers and receivers capable of operating at a wide range of speeds. The FC-0
level is designed for maximum flexibility and allows the use of a large number of technologies to meet
the widest range of system requirements.
▪ Each fibre is attached to a transmitter of a Port at one end and a receiver of another Port at the other
end (see figure). When a Fabric is present in the configuration, a fibre may attach to an N_Port and
an F_Port (see figure). Patch panels or portions of the active Fabric may function as repeaters,
concentrators or fibre converters.
Data Flow Stages

▪ First 32-bit [word]

divided into 4
characters then each
character is encoded
with 8/10 in FC1 then
transmit them serially
using serializer [parallel
to serial block]
FC-1

▪ As we said in previous slide , FC transmits information using an adaptive 8B/10B code to

bound the maximum run length of the code .
▪ Two types of transmission characters Data and Special .
▪ Ordered Sets are known as combinations of transmission characters
▪ Example for Ordered Sets :
FC-1 8B/10B Transmission Code

▪ FC-1 layer uses letter notation for describing information bits and control variable that we did
see in the example of ordered sets K28.5 here we just used letter and decimal numbers for
describing not binary notation which we will explain in the following.
▪ Unencoded FC-1 information byte is composed of eight information bits A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H
and the control variable Z . This information is encoded by FC-1 into the bits a,b,c,d,e,i,f,g,h,j
of a 10-bit transmission character.
▪ Information bit can hold only zero or one as value , control variable also can hold either the
value D means “valid data byte” or the value K means “special code”
FC-1 8B/10B Transmission Code

▪ The information bit labeled A corresponds to bit 0 [LSB] in the numbering scheme of the FC-2
specification , B corresponds to bit 1 and so on.
▪ Control variable Z is not specified by FC-2 , FC-1 assumes its value to be D (data)
▪ Each valid transmission character is represented as : Zxx.y Where Z is the control variable of
the unencoded FC-1 info. Byte, xx is the decimal value of the binary number composed of the
bits [E – D – C – B – A ] of unencoded FC-1 byte in that order , y is the decimal value of the
binary number composed of the bits [H – G – F ].
▪ Z is used to indicate if transmission character is
a Data character (Z=D) or special characters (Z=K)
FC-1 8B/10B Transmission Code Example