MACOM expanded its portfolio of active copper cable equalizers, with the first 227 Gbps per lane copper cable equalizer device that extends twinax copper cable reach.
Traditionally, Direct Attach passive copper Cable (DAC) transmission at 227 Gbps per lane has been limited to about one meter in length. MACOM’s new linear equalizers more than double the reach of copper cables, enabling longer 1.6 Tbit copper cable assemblies used in intra-rack connectivity for high-performance Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel and proprietary interconnect applications.
Emerging AI and high-performance computing clusters demand high bandwidth and low latency connectivity serviced by eight-lane octal small form factor pluggable (OSFP) and quad small form factor double density (QSFP-DD-based) cables. By utilizing un-retimed, linear equalization techniques, lower power and lower link latency is achieved compared to DSP retimed copper cables. These are critical parameters in high-performance computing and AI high density cluster applications.
The two MACOM products supporting this solution are MAEQ-40904, a small form-factor die solution and MAEQ-40914, the packaged version of the part. The devices’ small size and low power consumption make them ideal for implementation in small form factor cable connectors, such as two channel DSFP, four channel QSFP and eight channel QSFP-DD and OSFP.
