MaxLinear & Innovium test 400G DR4/FR4 & 100G DR1/FR1 interoperability

MaxLinear, which supplies radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, and Innovium conducted interoperability testing of MaxLinear’s Telluride PAM4 DSPs with Innovium’s 12.8Tbps TERALYNX Switch ASIC.


The companies said the tests successfully validated the functionality of the Telluride products in 400Gbps mode with support for breakout mode clocking in DR4 operation. Breakout mode clocking is an essential feature for hyper-scale data center customers for 400G DR4 deployments. MaxLinear’s 400G Telluride DSP (MxL9354x) is currently the only PAM4 DSP SoC product that successfully integrates this clocking requirement. In addition, the 100Gbps testing validated functionality of CAUI-4 (4X 25G NRZ), 100GAUI-2 interfaces and support for the required PAM4 KP4 FEC implemented in the 100G Telluride DSP (MxL9351x).

“First time success of the organically developed, low power, high-speed IP that operates at 25G NRZ, 50G and 100G PAM4 in the Telluride family of products establishes MaxLinear as a credible partner in the PAM4 and high-speed connectivity ecosystem,” said Will Torgerson, Vice President and General Manager of MaxLinear’s Broadband Group. “The successful interoperation between two key enablers of the technology confirms that ecosystem is coming together very quickly for industry transition towards 100G single lambda and 400Gbps optics connectivity within data centers.”

“Bandwidth demand in the data center is growing at an exponential pace, with increasing deployment of applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, distributed applications, video and IP-based storage. To meet this insatiable demand, we are excited to announce interoperability of PAM4-based MaxLinear DSPs used inside next-gen 100/400G optics solutions with TERALYNX™, Innovium’s industry leading 12.8Tbps programmable switch. Together, they are ready to power next generation large scale data centers,” said Amit Sanyal, VP of Product Management and Marketing at Innovium.