The PERICLES Electronic Switching System

The PERICLES system is a stored-program electronic switching system. The type presently being developed is meant to cover the predicted French Post Office needs from 1972 in the range of 4000-30 000 lines. The typical features of the system are described. A PERICLES exchange is composed of three different parts: the central control unit, the switching network, and the access devices to the links. The PERICLES central control unit consists of two processors which operate in traffic sharing. The processors have been designed to enable a low hardware cost and a high traffic efficiency. The switching network has its own control logic unit; it is considered as a peripheral of the processor. An advantage of this process is that PERICLES is independent of the crosspoint technology (reed relay, microcrossbar, p-n-p-n junction, etc.). For the moment the studies have been geared toward a reed-relay crosspoint with an electric hold (three wires). A 2000-subscriber prototype manufactured by SO.CO.TEL. and Le Materiel Telephonique will be in service in the Parisian public network in 1969.