Molex and Innovium to show optimized 12.8T

At OCP Summit 2019 later this week in San Jose, California, Molex and Innovium will host a joint demonstration combining Molex’s BiPass I/O technology with Innovium’s 12.8Tbps TERALYNX Switch ASIC.

The companies say the new switch system design offers better signal integrity, thermal management and simple manufacturability, providing the end customer a highly robust and resilient system.

Molex's low-insertion-loss, BiPass I/O technology serves as a PCB alternative to enable efficient and reliable implementation of 56 and 112 Gbps PAM-4 protocols. The BiPass cable assembly routes signals directly from an ASIC chip in a switch to the server front-panel I/O without having to go through the printed circuit board between them. Because the ASIC can be positioned farther back in the box, the BiPass solution allows for vertical orientation, providing greater port density. For further cost benefits, the BiPass solution reduces the number of board layers and eliminate the power cost and consumption of re-timers. From a thermal management perspective, the BiPass solution uses dual heatsinks, on the top and bottom of module, making cooling of 20W modules possible.

“By leveraging the combined capabilities of Innovium’s TERALYNX 12.8Tbps switch ASIC and Molex’s BiPass I/O technology, we are highlighting better performance and more operational efficiencies for our customer’s evolving data center needs,” said Chris Kapuscinski, global product manager, Molex. “The BiPass and Innovium demo shows that even at 112 Gbps, copper is still a viable and more economical option.”