Molex's Active Optical Interconnect Solutions

Brent Hatfield, Molex active optics product manager, said: "The market shows that the current data center interconnection length in the United States exceeds an average of 130m, while the target length of the 25 Gbps MM VCSEL solution used is only 100m. Data Center Architecture and OEMs Providers have found that silicon photonics-based optical products offer significant advantages in extending distance and have excellent low-power performance."

The new QuatroScale solution is based on silicon photonics CMOS technology, achieving the longest distance and lowest bit error rate (BER), with the highest reliability of any 28 Gbps product on the market. The QuatroScaleTM 100 Gbps zQSFP+ Active Optical Cable (AOC) and on-board module solutions operate at as low as 1.5W at 100 Gbps but can transmit up to 4km. The low power QuatroScale AOC offers achievable 1e-18 BER performance - accumulating over 3 billion equipment hours without module failure. The compact size of the QuatroScale zCDTM AOC provides 16 bidirectional channels operating at 28 Gbps data rates with data rates up to 400 Gbps.

The QuatroScale product portfolio offers a cost-effective solution for installation, with the unique ability to meet market demand for large distributed HPC data centers. In the summer of 2014, Molex plans to start offering the following product samples based on its innovative silicon photonics optical platform:

· 100 Gbps QSFP28 AOC

· 200 Gbps midplane optical modules (providing 200 Gbps or 2x 100 Gbps port products)

· 400 Gbps CDFP MSA AOC

Hatfield added: "The upcoming modular Modular QuatroScale solutions have additional economic value, combined with the lowest cost single-mode structured cabling, and Molex offers customers the most cost-effective silicon photonics solution for next-generation data centers. s Choice."