[Vote with Prizes] Who is the "Volume King" among high-speed IO connectors?
The rise of cloud computing has made data centers an indispensable "cloud brain", processing massive amounts of data every moment and driving the operation of an increasingly intelligent world. As data centers continue to iterate and upgrade, high-speed IO connectors are also evolving at an accelerated pace.
In order to establish higher speed and longer distance data communication between high-performance computing devices, interconnect them as a whole, and provide more powerful computing power, it is necessary to establish a data link between optical fiber and external networks and computing devices. The interface, especially as the interface of the optical module, is where the high-speed IO connector, one of the key components, comes into play.
Like every new technology in its infancy, high-speed IO interface technology also had many sects in the early stages of development, and they were not convinced by each other. In order to promote the standardization of high-speed IO interfaces and solve interoperability issues between different products, multiple manufacturers finally joined forces and hoped to standardize the interface type, installation and function of optical modules through a standardization organization. The Small Form Factor (SFF) Committee leads The MSA (Multi-Source Agreement, multi-source agreement) came into being.
The MSA standard defines the overall dimensions of the optical module interface, and also defines the specifications of its electrical interface and optical interface. All optical module suppliers strictly adhere to the MSA standard when designing products to ensure the operability and interchangeability between products. sex. This move will obviously help more manufacturers participate and achieve full competition in this field to reduce the cost of building and maintaining end-user systems and ensure the vitality of the entire industry.
At the same time, the evolution of MSA standards and the development of high-performance computing are also following suit. Changes in market demand will be fully taken into account and technology iterations will be carried out in a timely manner. Over the past 20 years, the MSA standard has never stopped upgrading, and the data bandwidth it supports has soared from the gigabit of the original GBIC standard to today's 400Gbps, and is moving towards 800Gbps.
Table 1: Main MSA standards and characteristics
#1
The first node is the transition from GBIC to SFP . Compared with the first generation GBIC standard, SFP's performance upgrades are all-round: first, the optical module using the SFP interface is only half the size of the GBIC module; second, the data transmission rate it supports has been greatly increased from 100Mbps to 4Gbps; third, Yes, the SFP interface supports hot swapping (rather than requiring welding like the GBIC module), which is more convenient to use... It can be said that the emergence of the SFP standard provides a solid technical foundation for the subsequent development of the MSA standard.
The second node is the upgrade from SFP to QSFP standard . Starting from the QSFP standard, MSA transformed the idea of technical upgrades, that is, by stacking more IO interfaces in a single package interconnection system to accommodate more data channels to obtain higher aggregate bandwidth. For example, the QSFP+ module can support 4 channels, each channel is 10Gbps, so it can obtain a total bandwidth of 40Gbps, which is 4 times that of the SFP+ module.
#2
#3
The third node is the emergence of the OSFP standard . OSFP is a new pluggable package with 8 high-speed electrical channels. The first-generation product can support 400Gbps bandwidth. It is worth noting that OSFP is larger in appearance than QSFP modules and is not directly backward compatible with existing QSFP interface specifications (if compatible, a special adapter is required), but it has better heat dissipation performance and is suitable for higher power Optical engine and transceiver. Therefore, it can be said that OSFP was specially built for future 800Gbps or even higher bandwidth networks after people realized that the development of QSFP four-channel products was about to hit the "ceiling" of performance.
According to our common sense, areas with fast development speed and good standardization will be relatively "volumey". The market environment faced by high-speed IO connectors is exactly in line with this.
If we carefully study the "inward rolling" methods of various connector manufacturers, we will find that if we want our products to become the "rolling king" among high-speed IO connectors and win the competition, we can usually start from three paths:
1
Plan ahead, keep up with the pace of standard development, and compete in new technologies and new applications in advance, such as actively embracing new standards such as OSFP and looking for new market growth points.
2
Deeply tap the potential, make a fuss about the optimization of the existing mainstream standard architecture, and promote product performance upgrades on the premise of ensuring compatibility, so that users can obtain higher-performance solutions at a lower cost.
3
Keep improving, taking into account the huge existing market, and continuously polishing mature products to achieve comprehensive competitiveness that is difficult to replace.
How does the real high-speed IO connector "Volume King" achieve the above goals? Today we will take three connector products of Amphenol Communications Solutions (ACS) as examples to give you an in-depth analysis.
Product one
ACS ExpressPort® SFP + Connector
ACS's ExpressPort
®
SFP+ connector is designed to provide users with a low-cost, high-speed modular IO interconnect solution. This solution can provide multiple configurations such as 1xN and 2xN. The ExpressPort
®
SFP+ 1xN connector is used with
the
ExpressPort
®
SFP+ housing to provide data transmission speeds up to 25Gbps. The 2xN combination consists of an integrated stacking connector system and a housing with compatible press-fit pins or solder tails.
To achieve higher transmission rates, the connector is designed to significantly reduce impedance discontinuities and reflections at high data rates. It also provides a 10dB to 20dB improvement in near-end crosstalk. ExpressPort ® SFP+ also uses a specially designed shielding cage structure, using metal reeds or rubber gaskets to achieve EMI shielding, further ensuring signal quality.
Additionally, for thermal dissipation, the connector offers the option of a passive heat exchanger that transfers heat to the flowing coolant. A light pipe option is also available that indicates "connected" or "not connected" status via a PCB-mounted LED. Although SFP+ is not an “eye-catching” new standard, a lot of thought has been put into the design of the ExpressPort ® SFP+ connector, allowing the connector to bring additional added value to applications in the existing market.
Figure 1: ExpressPort® SFP + Connector
(Image source: ACS)
Product 2
ACS QSFP DD Connector
The QSFP double density (DD) connector should be regarded as the "pinnacle" of ACS' performance potential in the QSFP architecture. Based on QSFP, it doubles the number of electrical interfaces to 8, each using 25Gbps NRZ or 56Gbps PAM4 signal format, so it can achieve data transmission rates up to 400Gbps.
Using this 76-position 0.8mm pitch connector, up to 14.4Tbps of total bandwidth can be achieved in a single switch slot (accommodating a total of 36 QSFP DD ports). Its shielding cage and connectors are designed to be backward compatible with QSFP28 modules. The QSFP28 modules can be inserted into the QSFP DD port and connected to 4 of the 8 electrical channels, fully taking into account the need for compatibility and upgrade of existing QSFP interconnection systems.
This QSFP DD interconnect system supports multiple connection configurations, including single (1x1), modular (1xN) and stacked (2xN) connector and shielding cage configurations; it also supports passive and active copper and optical cables components, can use DAC, short-distance and long-distance optical cables; and it also provides a variety of heat sink options, so the QSFP DD connector can achieve higher performance in practical applications while also providing users with great design flexibility flexibility.
Figure 8: ACS QSFP DD Connector
(Image source: ACS)
Product three
ACS OSFP Interconnect System
The OSFP interconnection system launched by ACS has eight high-speed channels, each port has 60 contacts, supports 16 high-speed pairs, and the contact spacing is 0.6mm. It can achieve transmission speeds of 25Gbps NRZ and 56Gbps PAM4 per channel, with a total bandwidth of Can reach 200Gbps and 400Gbps. At the same time, it has been designed to support higher-speed applications of the next generation 112Gbps PAM4, which will provide a total bandwidth of 800Gbps.
The OSFP connector has improved the stacked design, has low crosstalk and frequency elimination characteristics, and provides ground sharing that is beneficial to resonance suppression. These signal integrity optimization measures are conducive to improving its ultra-high-speed data transmission performance. This interconnect system is available in 1U applications and features an integrated heat sink for optimal cooling.
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Compatible with all mating connector and shielding cage configurations including single port, modular and stacked, which can greatly increase the density between linear ports;
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All cage configurations offer up to 16W of power per port, allowing the use of DAC, short-range and long-range optical cables without worrying about heat dissipation;
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Support customized solutions, including adapter cables and loopback cables, to meet application requirements in multiple scenarios.
In short, ACS's OSFP interconnect system is an ideal solution for users who want to plan ahead and seize the opportunity in the next generation of high-performance computing systems.
Figure 9: ACS OSFP Interconnect System
(Image source: ACS)
Prize voting
The development of high-performance and high-density computing represented by data centers is driving the continuous optimization and upgrading of high-speed IO connector products. In this fiercely competitive market, it is not easy to become the "Volume King" of the generation.
Although the three ACS high-speed IO products introduced in this article comply with different MSA standards and are suitable for computing devices of different performance, they can all accurately find their own technical focus, establish their own competitive advantages, and bring users greater value.
Among these three products, who is the "Volume King" of high-speed IO connectors in your mind? Please take part in our prize voting and make your choice——
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