Live demonstrations to help accelerate data centre development

“As data centres transition to higher speed server Ethernet uplinks to support the increasing demand for data bandwidth, maintaining copper interconnects between the servers and top-of-rack switches would save significant CAPEX spending in the speed upgrades. With an unrivaled track record of shipping high speed copper PHYs to the network infrastructure market and a proven 50G PAM-4 PHY core, Broadcom is fully committed to working with industry’s leading cabling vendors to deliver cost effective copper PHY solutions to help accelerate 40GbE, 100GbE and 200GbE deployments in the data centre,” said Lorenzo Longo, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Physical Layer Products Division at Broadcom.

The 40GbE and 100GbE demonstrations are based on Broadcom’s low power, low latency PAM-4 PHY chips with integrated re-timer and equaliser functions, the BCM59240 and BCM59025, and the latest thin active copper cable (ACC) solutions from Foxconn Interconnect Technology. In the 40GbE demonstration, attendees will see a live traffic stream of 40GbE data transmitted up to eight metres of 26AWG QSFP ACC. In the 100GbE demonstration, attendees will see live traffic stream of 100GbE data transmitted up to seven metres of 26AWG QSFP ACC.

“We are pleased to have collaborated with Broadcom in demonstrating 40GbE and 100GbE data centre interconnects over extended copper cables. The combination of FIT’s latest QSFP ACC solution and Broadcom’s PAM-4 PHY provides a lower cost alternative to conventional active optical cable (AOC) solutions for short reach 40GbE and 100GbE applications,” said Yan Margulis, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Foxconn Interconnect Technology.

The 200GbE demonstration uses Broadcom’s BCM59025 PAM-4 PHY chip and the microQSFP passive copper cable (PCC) solution from TE Connectivity. Attendees will see live traffic stream of error-free 200GbE data transmitted up to three metres of 30AWG microQSFP PCC. This demonstration not only underscores Broadcom’s PAM-4 technical leadership, but also illustrates the copper PHY capability to support the next generation 200GbE interface for network switches and ASICs.

“TE Connectivity and Broadcom are the first in the industry to demonstrate the ability to support 200Gbps passive copper over three metres in a generally SFP sized connector that typically does only 28 Gbps today. TE’s microQSFP interconnects, coupled with the Broadcom chipset, can now reach speeds of 14.4Tbps in 1U standard rack which was previously impossible without full optical backplanes. We are very pleased to partner with Broadcom in driving this new achievement,” said Arash Behziz, System Architect at TE Connectivity.