Inphi Corporation, a provider of high-speed analog semiconductor solutions for the communications and computing markets, has unveiled what the company claims to be the industry's first, lowest power 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) CMOS PHY solutions that support the IEEE (News - Alert) 802.3ba standard and target next generation high density 100G line cards.

Officials with Inphi said that based on the company’s iPHY architecture announced in March, the IN112510 100GbE CMOS Gearbox (GB) and IN012525 100GbE CMOS Clock Data Recovery (CDR) chipsets will accelerate time-to-market for higher aggregate bandwidth systems while containing costs of next generation 100GbE line cards targeted for data center and enterprise networks.

Company officials believed that cost-effective, energy-efficient 100GbE links will soon become essential tools for data center and service provider networks, which are struggling to satisfy the global economy's relentless hunger for more bandwidth.

According to company officials, with service providers and data centers demanding technology with low power consumption, Inphi's latest iPHY CMOS PHY solutions will enable them to easily upgrade to 100GbE networks while retaining a lower carbon footprint.

"Inphi is proud to deliver on the iPHY architecture and be the first to sample the industry's lowest power CMOS 100GbE Gearbox and CDR PHY semiconductors for line cards and modules enabling next generation 100G platforms," said Siddharth Sheth, vice president of marketing for Inphi's high-speed connectivity products, in a statement.

"Our industry-leading PHY design metrics – power, footprint, integration – position us to use these devices across data center, enterprise and service provider applications,” said Sheth.

Sheth added that as the market transitions away from the power hungry and area intensive SiGe technology-based CFP modules towards lower power, higher density CMOS-based CFP and CFP2 line cards, Inphi's PHY offerings will enable and lead that transition.

"Video, rich IP content, streaming media, and bandwidth-hungry mobile and cloud-based enterprise apps are driving massive upgrades of data center and service provider networks. With fat pipes needed to accommodate the tsunami of data generated by these applications, the demand for 100GbE is in the here and now," said John D'Ambrosia, chair, Ethernet Alliance (News - Alert) and past chair, IEEE 802.3ba 40G/100G Ethernet Task Force.

D'Ambrosia said that the announcement from Inphi is an important step in allowing system OEMs and optical module vendors to build next generation 100GbE systems that are both 802.3ba-compliant and key to 100GbE's success in the market.