Programmable SONET framing

1. An apparatus comprising:

a synchronous optical network (SONET) framer;

a frame dimension unit; and

a programming interface, said frame dimension unit to be programmed with a frame dimension through said programming interface, and said SONET framer to convert a data stream to and/or from a frame format based on the frame dimension programmed into the frame dimension unit.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the frame dimension unit comprises a plane counter, a row counter, and a column counter.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein at least one of the plane counter, the row counter, and the column counter is programmable.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the programming interface comprises at least one of a data bus and one or more dip switches.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the frame dimension comprises a programmable number of planes per frame.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the SONET framer supports a plurality of standard SONET data rates corresponding to particular values of the programmable number of planes.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the SONET framer supports a range of data rates corresponding to particular values of the programmable number of planes.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the frame dimension comprises at least one of a programmable number of rows per frame and a programmable number of columns per frame.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the SONET framer supports a range of data rates corresponding to at least one of the programmable number of rows and the programmable number of columns.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the apparatus comprises a simulation environment, and wherein the frame dimension is programmed to achieve a data rate supported by the simulation environment.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the simulation environment comprises at least one of a software simulator and a hardware emulator.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a simulation environment interface to couple the apparatus to a simulation environment, said frame dimension to be programmed to achieve a data rate supported by the simulation environment.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the simulation environment comprises at least one of a software simulator and a hardware emulator.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a logic analyzer interface to couple the apparatus to a logic analyzer, said frame dimension to be programmed to achieve a volume of data per frame supported by the logic analyzer.

15. A method comprising:

programming a frame dimension unit with a frame dimension through a programming interface of a synchronous optical network (SONET) framer; and

converting a data stream to and/or from a frame format with the SONET framer based on the frame dimension programmed into the frame dimension unit.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein programming the frame dimension unit comprises:

setting a number of planes per frame.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the number of planes corresponds to one of a plurality of standard SONET data rates supported by the SONET framer.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein programming the frame dimension unit comprises at least one of:

setting a number of rows per frame; and

setting a number of columns per frame.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein the number of rows and/or number of columns correspond to one of a range of data rates supported by the SONET framer.

20. A machine readable medium having stored thereon machine executable instructions that when executed implement a method comprising:

programming a frame dimension unit with a frame dimension through a programming interface of a synchronous optical network (SONET) framer; and

converting a data stream to and/or from a frame format with the SONET framer based on the frame dimension programmed into the frame dimension unit.