An orthogonal architecture is a hardware structure that orients LPUs or interface boards orthogonally to SFUs. This eliminates the need for a backplane and its associated traces, thereby achieving high transmission rates and overcoming the line rate bottleneck in the traditional backplane architecture. In addition to featuring high scalability and a large switching capacity, an orthogonal architecture also ensures low signal attenuation. It is employed on core routers and core DC switches.