The lower cost and wider availability of network interface cards (NICs) and other optical components have led to the recent upsurge in 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) networking. According to a recent report by research firm IDC, installation of 10GE ports will more than double from 1.4 million in 2007 to over 3 million by 2010 as more and more network switches and other datacom equipment adopt 10GE technology.
Avago’s SFP+ (small form-factor pluggable) optical transceivers will go a long way to helping 10GE adoption as they increase port density while holding the line on power consumption. The AFBR-7000DZ optical transceiver meets the IEEE’s 802.3ae 10GBASE-SR specifications for short-reach optical networking (see the figure). It also uses multimode fiber and provides coverage up to 300 m.
The device uses Avago’s own 850-nm vertical- cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which are based on an Avago 4G VCSEL design that has undergone over 2 billion device hours of testing with no failures. The receiver uses a PIN diode detector. Typical power consumption is 600 mW. The transceiver supports the SFF-8431 specification of 10GE SFP+ as well as the SFF-8472 specification for the digital monitoring interface (DMI) in optical transceivers.
The DMI uses an I2C interface to deliver real-time temperature, supply voltage, laser bias current, laser average output power, and received input power information. A digital diagnostic interface also adds the ability to disable the transmitter, monitor for transmitter faults, and monitor the receiver loss of signal.
The AFBR-7000DZ is available now at prices that begin at $200 in reasonable volume. Additionally, the company has a complete line of optical transceivers for other Ethernet standards as well as Sonet and Fibre Channel.
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