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Molex to Showcase with Cisco, Innovium and Keysight Technologies at OFC 2019
[March 05, 2019]

Molex to Showcase with Cisco, Innovium and Keysight Technologies at OFC 2019


Molex, a leading global manufacturer of electronic solutions, announces a collaboration with Cisco (News - Alert), Innovium and Ixia, a Keysight Business, in a joint demonstration at Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) Conference and Exhibition, to be held March 5-7, 2019 at booth 2807 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA (News - Alert).

The demonstration will show Ixia's AresONE 8x400GE test system generating a combined 3.2 Tbps live Ethernet traffic over Molex (News - Alert) QSFP-DD passive copper direct attach cable (DAC) assemblies at up to 3 meters to the device under test. The 400G and 100G Ethernet traffic streams will then be routed across multiple optical links consisting of Molex 400G-DR4. 100G-DR, 100G-FR and 100G-LR optical transceivers. A Cisco 12.8Tbps N3432D-S QSFP-DD switch and an Innovium 12.8Tbps TERALYNX™ Switch ASIC will also be showcased in this demonstration.

The 100G and 400G transceiver modules are products in Molex's 100 Gbps per wavelength PAM-4 product family which share Molex's 100G per Lambda optoelectronics technology platform. The 100G Single Lambda modules transmit and receive 100G PAM-4 modulated optical signals over 500m (100G-DR), 2 kilmeters (100G-FR) and 10 kilometers (100G-LR) of single mode fiber. Aggregating four 100 Gbps per wavelength lanes, the technology platform also offers 400G versions such as 400G-DR4, 400G-FR4 and 4x100G-FR for breakout applications.



Real-time analysis on AresONE will showcase test results of pre-FEC (forward error correction) per lane BER (bit error rate) of around 1E-9. The superior performance of the "inherent" BER of the Molex DAC cable provides ample margin for the KP4 FEC to correct these errors, resulting in zero Frame Loss Ratio (FLR). The impressive operation of a 400 Gbps Ethernet DAC over a 3-meter cable demonstrates that the companies' innovative solutions fulfill industry standard IEEE (News - Alert) specs.

"To support advances within the market and address the evolving needs of customers, we are excited to collaborate with these industry leaders. Together, we are showcasing technology innovations that focus on the next-generation of high-speed, high-density networking," said Scott Sommers, group product manager at Molex and co-chair of the QSFP-DD MSA.


"Molex offers a comprehensive set of QSFP-DD solutions that include connectors, cages, DAC cables and optics modules. Innovium, the only provider of a low-latency, programmable 12.8T switch silicon in the market, has enabled system partners to build the next generation of 100/200/400G switches with QSFP-DD solutions from Molex," said Amit Sanyal, vice president of product management and marketing at Innovium. "Innovium, is excited to work with Molex to demonstrate interoperability of Molex's QSFP-DD DR4 optics modules and DAC cables with Innovium's industry-leading 12.8Tbps TERALYNX™ Evaluation Switch to help drive accelerated adoption of QSFP-DD solutions in next-generation datacenters."

"The ecosystem of 400GE-capable devices, optical and copper interconnects, and network switches is growing rapidly. Ixia (News - Alert), a Keysight business, continues to be proud to work with multiple 400GE product innovators in this systems demonstration. The AresONE 8x400GE QSFP-DD Ethernet traffic generator and analyzer is well suited to interoperate and drive live Ethernet traffic to measure the outstanding BER and FEC performance of these products," said Andy Moorwood, vice president of hardware engineering, Ixia Solutions Group, Keysight Technologies, Inc.

"Cisco is pleased to see our vision on QSFP-DD continues to be proven to be the leading industry solution. The deep experience of the industry with the QSFP form-factor enables continual innovation to meet growing market needs for 400 Gbps Ethernet and we expect the innovations to continue," said Mark Nowell, distinguished engineer, Cisco Data Center Switching.

About Molex, LLC

Molex brings together innovation and technology to deliver electronic solutions to customers worldwide. With a presence in more than 40 countries, Molex offers a full suite of solutions and services for many markets, including data communications, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, commercial vehicle and medical. For more information, please visit http://www.molex.com.

TERALYNX offers the world's fastest 12.8 Terabits/sec throughput while delivering line-rate programmability, large on-chip buffers, breakthrough telemetry, and low-latency. TERALYNX supports 10GbE to 400GbE Ethernet and delivers 128 ports of 100GbE, 64 ports of 200GbE or 32 ports of 400GbE in a single device. Innovium's patented ground-up design in TERALYNX provides customers clear advantages in programmability, robust tunneling, low latency, power efficiency, and advanced analytics/telemetry that are essential for scale data-centers.


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