Ethernet Alliance on 800G and the next Ethernet rate

It may have taken the industry five years to get 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) modules shipping, but for Mark Nowell, Advisory Board Chair at the Ethernet Alliance, the long gestation period is understandable given the innovation that has been required.

Mark Nowell

The industry has had to cram complex technology into a small form factor for 400GbE while meeting the requirements of two very different end-customers: webscale players and communications service providers.

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New MSA to enable four-lambda 400-gigabit modules

A new 100-gigabit single-wavelength multi-source agreement (MSA) has been created to provide the industry with 2km and 10km 100-gigabit and 400-gigabit four-wavelength interfaces.

Mark NowellThe MSA is backed by 22 founding companies including Microsoft, Alibaba and Cisco Systems.

The initiative started work two months ago and a draft specification is expected before the year end.

“Twenty-two companies is a very large MSA at this stage, which shows the strong interest in this technology,” says Mark Nowell, distinguished engineer, data centre switching at Cisco Systems and co-chair of the 100G Lambda MSA. “It is clear this is going to be the workhorse technology for the industry for quite a while.”

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