TE Connectivity (TE), a world leader in connectivity and sensors, and Credo, a provider of high performance, mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the data center, enterprise networking and high performance computing markets, today announced they have teamed up to demonstrate the future of networking technologies.

The companies will hold  demonstrations of 112Gbps over a chip to module (IO) channel and over a backplane channel at DesignCon 2018.  The demonstrations will be unveiled in booth #817 at DesignCon, which takes place in the Santa Clara, CA convention center from January 31 through February 1.  As industry groups such as OIF and IEEE meet to discuss feasibility of these types of links at these next-generation data rates, TE and Credo will be demonstrating performance on actual hardware.

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The IO channel demonstration uses TE’s OSFP IO connector with Credo’s 16nm, lower power, high performance 112G PAM4 SerDes technology to exhibit operation over a 10-inch printed circuit board (PCB) channel.  The "O" is for "octal" — it is being designed to use eight electrical lanes to deliver 400GbE — and "SFP" is for "small form factor pluggable.” The channel is driven by Credo’s 112G PAM4 SerDes, which is operating over a total ball-to-ball channel loss of >15 decibel (dB). The demo shows bit error rate (BER) performance of better than 1e-7.  The OSFP IO connector is a state-of-the-art 8 channel IO connector currently adopted for 400Gbps applications. The demonstration establishes TE’s OSFP connector performance as an 800Gbps-capable IO solution.

The backplane demonstration uses TE’s latest STRADA Whisper orthogonal backplane connector operating with a total channel loss of 20 dB at 28 GHz in a PCB-based direct plug orthogonal (DPO) architecture. Driven by Credo’s 112G PAM4 SerDes, the demo shows BER performance levels that fully enable the adoption of STRADA Whisper solutions for the next wave of networking equipment.

“Credo’s proven low power silicon expertise being advanced to 112G SerDes is a key technology milestone. Credo is enabling the industry to progress quickly to 112Gbps serial electrical signaling, which may pave the way for accelerating the deployment of 112G single lane, end-to-end network connectivity. Enabling faster data, in smaller spaces at a potentially lower cost,” said TE’s Nathan Tracy, technologist, member of system architecture team and industry standards manager.

“TE’s OSFP IO connector demonstrates the extremely low noise performance that will be required in 112Gbps IO applications. In addition, the performance of TE’s latest STRADA Whisper backplane connector enables the balance of the 112Gbps signaling interconnect ecosystem. TE’s world-class interconnect performance has demonstrated that it is 112Gbps ready,” said Jeff Twombly, vice president of business development at Credo.

To learn more about TE’s live demonstrations at DesignCon or schedule an on-site meeting, visit their DesignCon 2018 events page.