Patent ID: 7894457

Claim:
An optical networking module, comprising: an optical component to send and receive optical signals encoded with data; an optical-electrical component coupled to the optical component to encode an egress portion of said data to modulate to optical signals, and to decode optical signals to provide an ingress portion of said data; a multi-protocol processor including: a protocol processor component coupled to the optical-electrical component to perform at least one of data link or physical sub-layer processing on at least a portion of said data in accordance with a selected one of a plurality of protocols; a control function unit; a processor interface configured to facilitate provision of control specifications to the control function unit for managing the optical component, optical-electrical component and the multi-protocol processor; and a digital interface separate from the processor interface and disposed outside of said protocol processor component to support external software control functions in managing by the control function unit at least one of said optical and optical-electrical components; and a body encasing said optical component, said optical-electrical component, and said protocol processor component as a single module.