Avago's latest optical engine targets active optical cables

Avago Technologies has unveiled its first family of active optical cables for use in the data centre and for high performance computing.

The company has developed an optical module for use in the active optical cables (AOCs). Known as the Atlas 75x, the optical engine reduces the power consumption and cost of the AOC to better compete with direct-attach copper cables. 

“Some 99 percent of [active optical cable] applications are 20m or less”

Sharon Hall, Avago

Click to read more ...

Altera optical FPGA in 100 Gigabit Ethernet traffic demo

Altera is demonstrating its optical FPGA at OFC/NFOEC, being held in Los Angeles this week. The FPGA, coupled to parallel optical interfaces, is being used to send and receive 100 Gigabit Ethernet packets of various sizes. 

The technology demonstrator comprises an Altera Stratix IV FPGA with 28, 11.3Gbps electrical transceivers coupled to two Avago Technologies' MicroPod optical modules. 

"FPGAs are now being used for full system level solutions"

Kevin Cackovic, Altera

Click to read more ...

Altera unveils its optical FPGA prototype

Altera has been showcasing a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip with optical interfaces. The 'optical FPGA' prototype makes use of parallel optical interfaces from Avago Technologies.

Combining the FPGA with optics extends the reach of the chip's transceivers to up to 100m. Such a device, once commercially available, will be used to connect high-speed electronics on a line card without requiring exotic printed circuit board (PCB) materials. An optical FPGA will also be used to link equipment such as Ethernet switches in the data centre.

"It is solving a problem the industry is going to face," says Craig Davis, product marketing manager at Altera. "As you go to faster bit-rate transceivers, the losses on the PCB become huge."

Click to read more ...

Optical engines bring Terabit bandwidth on a card

Avago Technologies is now delivering to customers its 120 Gigabit-per-second optical engine devices. 

Such a parallel optics design offer several advantages when used on a motherboard. It offer greater flexibility when cooling since traditional optics are normally in pluggable slots at the card edge, furthest away from the fans. Such optical engines also simplify high-speed signal routing and electromagnetic interference issues since fibre is used rather than copper traces.

Figure 1: Fourteen 120Gbps MiniPods on a board. Source: Avago Technologies

Click to read more ...