Connectors increase faceplate density by 33%

TE is the first company to bring microQSFP products to market from the microQSFP Multi Source Agreement (MSA) group that is creating an industry-wide ecosystem for microQSFP, and ensuring that products can be easily adopted and integrated into existing data centre designs.

The increase in consumer demand for video content and streaming internet services requires significant increases in bandwidth, but standard I/O connectors are limited in their ability to deliver greater throughput in existing infrastructures because of their size and external heatsink. MicroQSFP connectors deliver QSFP28 functionality in a smaller, generally SFP-sized form factor while providing significantly better thermal performance to help save energy costs, improved electrical performance at 25GB/s and 33% higher density than QSFP to fit more ports on a standard line card.

“At a time when faceplate real estate and thermal performance are at a premium, TE’s microQSFP products deliver on both counts,” said Phil Gilchrist, CTO, TE Data and Devices. “The technological innovations of TE’s microQSFP products can revolutionise the industry by enabling customers to place up to 72 ports of 100Gb/s each on a 1RU line card.”

The new microQSFP connectors deliver 56Gb/s performance with backward compatibility to 28Gb/s to support next gen designs. Built-in fins on TE’s new connectors eliminate the need for additional clips and heatsinks and allow faceplate airflow to the interior of the equipment, which helps microQSFP deliver significantly better thermal performance than QSFP28 and other leading solutions.

TE’s microQSFP products are the first available to the market from the microQSFP MSA group. TE led the formation of the microQSFP MSA group, which also includes 19 other leading suppliers and manufacturers in the industry.