TE Connectivity, today announced that it will showcase Sliver interconnects at DesignCon 2018 that have been adopted as the SNIA SFF TWG Technology Affiliate’s SFF-TA-1002 specification multi-lane high speed connector. Multiple groups within the industry including the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO), the Gen-Z Consortium (Gen-Z), Open Compute Project (OCP) and Enterprise & Data Center SSD Working Group (EDSFF) have adopted TE’s Sliver internal cabled and card edge interconnects as the standardized connector solutions in their server, storage and networking designs. Sliver interconnects provide one of the most flexible, high-performance solutions in the market for making internal input/output (I/O) connections on the board.
In addition, Sliver interconnects simplify design and help lower overall costs by eliminating the need for re-timers and costlier, lower-loss printed circuit board (PCB) materials while reaching speeds greater than 50 gigabits per second (Gbps). Sliver interconnects are available as cable to board connections, card edge connections, with straddle mount and orthogonal additions in the works. Sliver is an ideal solution for many different applications, including high-speed I/O, optical connectivity, PCIe cabled extension, PCIe high-speed card edge, storage connectivity and general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) internal/external cabling.
COBO is developing a series of specifications to permit the use of embedded optical modules in the manufacturing of networked equipment (i.e. switches, servers, etc.). The organization references industry specifications where possible and develops specifications where required with attention to electrical interfaces, pin-outs, connectors, and thermals, to name a few, for the development of connectable, interchangeable and interoperable embedded optical modules that can be mounted onto motherboards and daughter cards.
“Sliver interconnects’ ability to deliver greater than 50 Gbps performance made it an ideal connector on which to standardize the high-speed data interface,” said Brad Booth, President of COBO and Manager of Network Hardware at Microsoft Azure Infrastructure. “Sliver interconnects are a critical component in COBO’s data center networking specification to facilitate the use of embedded optical modules in network equipment across multiple generations of Ethernet data rates.”
Gen-Z was developed to enhance existing and enable new solution architectures while delivering new levels of performance (high bandwidth, low latency), software efficiency, power optimizations and industry agility.
“Products like Sliver interconnects allow us to drive higher performance and greater flexibility in our designs,” said Kurtis Bowman, president of the Gen-Z Consortium. “TE Connectivity products are a key element to our scalable connector strategy and forthcoming specification release, helping our open standards forum achieve its technology goals.”
Visit TE at DesignCon 2018, booth #817 to see a live demo of Sliver interconnects.
For more information on Sliver internal cabled interconnects, please visit www.TE.com/sliver or TE’s DesignCon Events page.