Steve Leibson(1) and our friends at Xilinx® recently posted a blog about an interconnect system that carries four lanes of 28 Gbps data over six feet of cable. Since this is a Samtec blog, of course it’s a Samtec connector they’re talking about. The Xilinx blog references a short video that shows a Samtec QSFP28 copper flyover™ carrying four lanes of 28 Gbps serial data error free over six feet of copper twinax cable with plenty of margin.
Steve goes on to point out that even if a designer uses a “super-advanced, super-high-speed, ultra-low-loss pcb dielectric material like Panasonic’s MEGTRON6 — your on-board reach is only five to eight inches. So Samtec’s FireFly system really extends your reach for these very high-speed data streams.” Here’s a link to Steve’s blog and view the two videos.
PCIe® Over Fiber
PCIe® over Fiber technologies enable new and emerging HPC and Data Center architectures. Traditional systems place GPUs and system storage as close to the server and CPU as possible for optimized performance.
PCIe® over Fiber technologies leverage the high performance and low latency of the PCIe® protocol, but at distances of up to 100 meters when compared to traditional copper cable assemblies. This capability gives HPC/Data Center system designs more flexibility as they design next generation solutions.
The PCIe® protocol offers many benefits to today’s system designers not offered by other fabrics: low latency, power savings, and guaranteed transmission. Traditionally, this protocol has been constrained to inside the box type applications, with some limited extension and expansion applications that use short, bulky copper cables.
FireFly™
Samtec’s FireFly™ based PCIeOver Fiber solution offers key features that solve the challenges of transmitting the PCIe protocol over longer links. The miniature size of Samtec’s high-density optical engines allows them to be easily designed into the downstream system, ultimately making these systems smaller. Highly flexible, small diameter, industry standard optical patch cords provide connection to the control system.
Bidirectional auxiliary signals allow both transparent and non-transparent bridging
High-performance signal quality with BER better than 1E-15
Enables links up to 100 meters
Enables nontraditional FPGA/ASIC-based endpoints
Industry leading miniature footprint allows close placement to the IC, which enables lower drive voltages/pre-emphasis resulting in reduced power consumption
Host/Target adaptor card supporting transparent and NTB links is in development