Spectra7 Microsystems and MultiLane Technologies demonstrated 112Gbps PAM4 Active Copper Cable (ACC) technology at this week's DesignCon event in San Jose, California.
Spectra7 said ACCs enabled by its new 112G PAM4 GaugeChanger chip will extend copper cable reach 2.5 times, up to 4 meters at a fraction of the cost of optics. Critically, at a time when Hyperscale operators are struggling with power consumption and carbon emissions, ACCs using the Spectra7 technology will consume only 200mW of power per channel, which is up to 12 times lower power than optical solutions.
Spectra7's GC1122 solution is the latest addition to the company's GaugeChanger product line and extends the data rate from 56Gbps PAM4 to 112Gbps PAM4 per lane. Since the GC1122 is analog and highly linear, dynamics such as line rate adjustment, multi-level signaling, intermittent line silence, transmit pre-emphasis or amplitude adjustment and receiver adaptivity are fully preserved. The GC1122 is packaged in an ultra-small 2.7mm x 4.2mm chip scale package making it easily embeddable in even the smallest of connectors.
The DesignCon demonstration highlights Spectra7's new GC1122 device as well as MultiLane's latest high speed test equipment including the ML4015D DSO and the ML4039E BERT.
"Spectra7's new GC1122 is set to fill a big need in the data center interconnect market," said MultiLane CEO Fadi Daou. "We are delighted to be working with Spectra7 and their cable partners as they anticipate bringing their 112Gbps products to mass production in 2022."
"We are seeing tremendous interest from every Hyperscaler to get sample 800Gbps cables that are enabled by our new GC1122 solution", said Spectra7 CEO Raouf Halim. "Both we and our cable partners believe that 800Gbps will represent a significant acceleration in the growth and adoption of our ACC data center interconnect technology."