PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF ASYNCHRONOUS AND SYNCHRONOUS CODE-DIVISION MULTIPLE-ACCESS TECHNIQUES FOR FIBEROPTIC LOCAL AREA NETWORKS

Synchronous code-division multiple access (abbreviated S/CDMA) for fiber-optic local area networks is investigated. The large bandwidth-expansion required by spread spectrum techniques, such as code-division multiple access, can be accommodated by using a fiber-optic channel for transmission and incoherent optical signal processing for code generation and correlation. Prime sequence codes, previously developed for an optical fiber network using (asynchronous) code-division multiple access (CDMA), are modified to fit a synchronous transmission format. A performance comparison of CDMA and S/CDMA systems reveals that S/CDMA can accommodate a larger number of subscribers and more simultaneous users than CDMA. An environment in which S/CDMA would be particularly suited is discussed.