Where to find FlexO Documents?


The FlexO spec can be found on the ITU-T page:

http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.709.1/en


A FlexO v2 is in the works (not yet published) that extends the rates to
n x 200 and n x 400G FlexO.

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What is FlexO? Why use it?


FlexO is a physical interface for OTUCn. It is used instead of OTL for
transmitting over the serdes.

It shares the same FEC/physical interface as Ethernet.

The overhead of this FEC is less than what OTU4 uses, so even
though OTUCn is a higher rate than OTU4, the rate of the physical
interface is the same.


FlexO also allows for bonding. That is, you can take one large signal
(ex: a OTUC4), and spread it evenly across independent, lower rate
PHYs (ex: 4x 100G FlexO interfaces).

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FlexO Frame Structure

Each row is sized to 5140 bits,
which matches the ethernet FEC
codeword size. After FEC is
added, it will become 5440 bits.


Overhead and fixed stuff is
inserted periodically. FlexO has a
multiframe size of 256, but the
fixed stuff structure repeats
every 8 frames.


Frame length: ~6.228us


The frame is not a multiple of an
OTUCn frame, but 128-bit chunks
of OTUCn are inserted into FlexO
aligned to 128-bit boundaries.
FlexO frames are a multiple of
128 bits.
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FlexO Overhead


STAT: contains remote phy fault (a backwards error indicator).

GID: Identifies which client is mapped to this FlexO.
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PID: Identifies which PHY this FlexO got sent over.
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GID / PID = 0 indicates FlexO is not part of a group (ie: >100G).

PHY MAP: Spans 8 multiframes. Each bit is one-hot, and indicates which PHYs
members of this group use.

AVAIL: The number of OTUCn mapped. More useful for 200/400G FlexO.

CRC: STAT to MAP is covered by CRC. If invalid, don’t accept them.

FCC: general comms channel.

OSMC: PTP messaging channel. For interface #2+, it’s a RES field.
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