Last week, Mindspeed hosted a demo room and a private meeting room at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC 2013) at the Anaheim Convention Center.
The Mindspeed demo room
At the show, we introduced the expansion of our industry-leading crosspoint portfolio with 160×160, 48×48, 36×36 and 24×24 devices capable of data rates up to 12.5Gbps. These products enable at-speed switching which reduces latency for optical transport and data center applications .
Today’s ultra-time-sensitive applications demand very low latency that wide area networks and data centers need to address. An example is financial trading, where low latency is required for running an efficient, competitive market, and is viewed as a competitive advantage that delivers increased profits for firms which can execute transactions faster than their competitors. In such applications, latency is a frequently used metric that determines the necessary network and system architecture driving the use of crosspoints where port-based switching is required.
Our crosspoints utilize high-performance analog process technology, enabling at-speed port switching, eliminating the need for SerDes devices and memory required for store-and-forward packet switching scheme, thus reducing latency, power consumption and cost. In addition, they feature Mindspeed’s advanced signal-integrity management technology that delivers signal transmission speeds up to 12.5 Gbps. This signal conditioning technology enables storage, server and networking systems to support the industry’s migration to higher data rates over backplanes and cabling media.
The new devices further extend the industry’s broadest offering of crosspoint switch switches spanning 2×2 to 288×288 matrix sizes. For communications applications, the switches support 10 Gigabit Ethernet, optical transport channel unit 2 (OTU2), 8G and 10G Fibre Channel, 12.5 Gbps for two times RXAUI and proprietary data rates.
>>> read the Crosspoint Switch press release here …
We also announced the industry’s lowest-power clock and data recovery (CDR) devices capable of supporting data rates up to 28 gigabits per second (Gbps). Low power dissipation is a critical requirement for small form factor interconnects for the 100 Gigabit Ethernet, InfiniBand and optical transport systems enabling port densities that the industry must achieve in order to handle increasing Internet traffic and escalating online video content demand.
Our four channel CDRs support data rates required for multiple standards including 100G Ethernet, InfiniBand Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), 32G Fibre Channel and Optical Transport Network (OTU-4). The low-power solution enables next-generation optical and copper module form factors, such as CFP-2, CFP-4 and Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP). Mindspeed’s CDRs integrate key features, such as an input equalizer and output de-emphasis to optimize link performance and support line card retiming applications as well as loopback for system level diagnostics. The devices are reference-free, eliminating the need for reference crystal oscillators thus reducing the number of components and cost required to implement a retiming function. Further, the devices include input equalization circuitry to support lossy channels and support a wide output amplitude range to seamlessly interoperate with optical assemblies.
Molex Incorporated has used Mindspeed’s CDRs to demonstrate the industry’s first, fully retimed 100Gbps zQSFP+ Active Optical Cable meeting stringent power consumption and thermal constraints of a small modular form factor.
“In the drive to match 100Gbps port count density to current 10Gbps interconnect levels, system OEMs require small front panel pluggable modules, which will enable tenfold increase in front panel bandwidth density. This creates a challenge for interconnect manufacturers to meet the power consumption and thermal constraints of QSFP modules,” said Adit Narasimha, director of new product development at Molex, Inc. “Molex’s silicon photonics-based zQSFP+ solutions in combination with Mindspeed’s low power CDRs are the first to demonstrate 100Gbps small form factor modules with retiming in both transmit and receive directions.”
>>> read the CDR press release here …
>>> You can also visit our Flickr page for a gallery of photos from the show.
There will also be information on Mindspeed’s newly announced T3400 and T4400 Transcede SoC, designed for high-performance small cell basestations, supporting LTE-A with a roadmap to LTE-B/LTE-HI.
