Channel rates have evolved from 28 Gbps NRZ to the current 56 Gbps PAM4, with 112 Gbps PAM4 in-development and knocking at the door. This live product demonstration shows the door is opening with a cutting-edge 112 G test chip and two new high-performance connector systems.
It’s all driven by the Alphawave AlphaCORE 100 Long-Reach Multi-Standard SERDES. This is a high-performance, low-power, DSP-based PHY.
The new connector products are the Samtec NovaRay® extreme density array system, and the 70 GHz Bulls Eye® test point system (BE70A). Ralph Page, Systems Architect at Samtec, walks us through the demo, signal path and results.
The Alpahwave 112 G PHY test chip generates 2 differential signals, which travel to a Samtec Bulls Eye High-Performance Test cable system. The Bulls Eye is located opposite the chip on the back of the board.
The signals travel from the Bulls Eye connector, through 6” of coaxial cable, which terminate to 1.85 mm compression precision RF connectors on the first NovaRay SI Evaluation Board.
The signals then travel through two adjacent pairs on the mating connector set, then through the second NovaRay board. They exit that board through 1.85 mm precision RF connectors, through 20” of .86 RF mm wave cable, back to the Bulls Eye BE70A connector, and back to the Alphawave chip.
To quote Ralph, “The performance is outstanding.” Looking at both the victim and aggressor lanes, we see wide-open eyes. And the bathtub charts show 1e-11 error rates, pre-FEC, at 112 Gbps PAM4.
The histograms show uniform groupings and great separation between the lanes.
This demonstration incorporates Samtec’s NovaRay SI Evaluation Kit. Samtec has a variety of Board-to-Board SI Evaluation Kits. These provide system designers and SI engineers easy-to-use platforms for testing many of Samtec’s popular board-to-board connector products.
NovaRay combines extreme density and performance for 112 Gbps PAM4 per channel in 40% less space than traditional arrays.
The compression interface, small footprint and high cycle count make Bulls Eye ideal for high-performance test applications.
And if you have questions about this demonstration, please contact us at [email protected].
You may also want to check-out this 112 Gbps PAM4 Rack-to-Rack Interconnect With Remarkable Results.
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