Intra-rack system interconnects at 10Gbps have a huge impact on data center power consumption and capital expenditure, both need to be managed with equal care.
Although 80% of cables in the data center are less than 30m in length, the incumbent interconnect solutions have always required compromises to be made: 10GBASE-SR is expensive, 10GBASE-CX4 is bulky and 10GBASE-T is power hungry.
To address these inherent weaknesses, Phyworks’ active twin-ax copper interconnect solution presents a radical alternative which can simultaneously tackle both power and capex issues.
We have taken the unique equalisation and clock and data recovery technology we developed for optical fibre communication and repurposed it for copper cables. The result is set to change the way data centers are designed.
Phyworks’ technology enables 10Gbps interconnects to be made over thin 24 to 30AWG twin-ax cables of up to 30m. Link cost is less than a third that of its 10GBASE-SR optical counterpart, while it’s power consumption is the same. Active twin-ax copper cable assemblies are now being trialled by cable assembly makers and data center equipment manufacturers.
The solution is seen to ‘de-risk’ data center network design. Since the chip technology will fit both XFP and SFP+ modules it offers future proofing, plus it means that the new copper cable interconnects can be hot-plugged into existing optical ports to dramatically increase design flexibility.
Furthermore, unlike 10G-BASE-T, the cable driver electronics, the equalizer and retimer technology, is contained in the cable module and not on the line card and so in terms of power consumption, Phyworks’ active twin-ax cable solution is effectively “pay-as-you-grow”.
Copper backplanes are recognised as a key bottleneck in the transmission capacity of communications and data storage equipment, due to the difficulty of compensating for the degradation of high data rate electrical signals over copper traces.
Our robust, low power equalization and clock and data recovery technology enables existing backplanes, currently using four parallel lanes running at 3.125Gbps, to achieve serial 10Gbps throughput without redesign. This capability has already been demonstrated to major suppliers of communications equipment.
The evolution of new applications, such as IPTV for example, is placing greater demands on enterprise and public network providers. Phyworks equalization and clock and data recovery technology allows the development of backplanes capable of supporting high-capacity systems while meeting all power, performance and cost objectives.
We are working with key suppliers in the blade server and telecom blade markets to develop products that support future service requirements and meet evolving open architecture standards, such as 40G and 100G, where Phyworks technology is ideally positioned.