14 September 2011

OIF next-gen interconnect and 100G projects to address growing pains for 100G and beyond 

Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) have initiated a Next Generation Interconnect Framework project that explores application spaces for high-speed optical and/or electrical interconnect and identifies the necessary elements for follow-on implementation agreements (IA). The OIF has also started a new 100G project to address next-generation integrated coherent receivers, targeting lower-cost, higher-density applications. A third project addresses a Multi-Link Gearbox (MLG) for 100G client-side signaling. 

“All three of these projects are critical to the industry to support 100G and beyond,” says Rod Smith of TE Connectivity and the OIF Market Awareness & Education (MA&E) committee co-chair, PLL(Physical and Link Layer). “As the industry transitions to 100G and beyond, new agreements are needed to support the higher data rates through smaller form factors and reduced power consumption,” he adds.

In the past decade, the industry has developed high-speed electrical interfaces such as the OIF’s CEI-11. New technologies and agreements will be needed to meet next-generation interconnect system solutions, says the OIF. Such interconnect solutions will be required for applications including very short reaches within the blade, longer reaches between blades (backplanes) and chassis-to-chassis. These applications will require interoperability between components from different vendors as well as significant investment across the ecosystem, adds the OIF.

“Electrical signaling over the required distances within a system is anticipated to be challenging at the higher data rates,” says OIF board member Jeff Hutchins. “Both vendors as well as users will benefit from agreements that enable interoperability within the various applications spaces,” he adds.

The second project, the Generation 2.0 Intradyne Coherence Receiver (Gen-2 ICR), will define a smaller 100G coherent receiver to satisfy the industry need for size and cost reduction necessary to support the evolving 100G coherent DSP-based module standards. The project follows the OIF’s Gen-1 ICR IA (OIF-DPC-RX-01.0 IA), which enabled long-haul applications using line-card and large-form-factor transponder (e.g. MSA-100GLH) implementations. 

The third project, the Multi-Link Gearbox (MLG), will enable applications where a group of 10GBASE-R virtual links are transported by a 4x25G physical link. It will define a 10:4 Mux MLG function to convert multiple (up to 10) independent 10Gb/s links into 4x25G lanes, and a 4:10 DeMux MLG function to convert the 4x25G lanes back to multiple (up to 10) independent 10Gb/s links. In addition, the project will define in-band coding that preserves 10GBASE-R physical lane-to-lane ordering and in-lane bit ordering to support synchronous and asynchronous 10G lanes. 

Tags: OIF

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