Alvesta, a privately-held provider of optical communications products and Cypress Semiconductor (Quote) have announced the QuadLink MSA, a Multi-Source Agreement based on four-channel parallel optic transceivers.
QuadLink is described as the first parallel optics MSA optimized for 10-gigabit operation across multiple industry standards, including Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) for SONET/SDH, InfiniBand, and the emerging 10 Gigabit Fibre Channel specification.
The new pact assures availability and compatibility for advanced optical-networking applications, officials from both companies said.
The QuadLink MSA is based on an four-channel, full-duplex optical transceiver architecture. Both companies intend to manufacture MSA-compliant optical transceivers. Additionally, the MSA is openly structured to enable additional optics vendors to manufacture compatible products. Fully compatible optics from multiple vendors provide optical system manufacturers with improved continuity of supply and associated risk reduction.
"Four-channel parallel transceivers are the most cost-effective optical solution for 10-gigabit applications," said Dan Morris, vice president of Cypress's WAN and Storage Network divisions. "Optics is the wave of the future; therefore, we have developed parallel optical interconnect products, leveraging the capabilities of Cypress and our subsidiary Silicon Light Machines. Signing this MSA demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with very-short range optical solutions."
Industry standards supported by the QuadLink MSA include OIF-VSR4-03.0 for OC-48 SONET/SDH channel aggregation, IB-4X-SX for InfiniBand architecture quad optical links, and 1200-M5-SN4P-I for 10 Gigabit Fibre Channel VSR optics as included in the current 10 GFC NCITS working draft. The QuadLink MSA leverages the broad availability of electronic components optimized for four-channel operation. Specifically, the MSA is compatible with SERDES and integrated switch silicon from a number of leading semiconductor manufacturers.
Compatible products include quad and octal SONET/SDH SERDES and integrated switches supporting 4 x 2.488 Gbps (Gigabits per second) data transfer, quad InfiniBand SERDES and 4x integrated switches operating at 4 x 2.5 Gbps, and four channel XAUI SERDES for 10-gigabit Ethernet or 10-gigabit Fibre Channel applications operating at 4 x 3.125 or 4 x 3.1875 Gbps respectively.
The MSA footprint of 542 mm2 is the smallest in the industry for 10-Gbps serial or parallel optics, taking 35% less board space than the next smallest solution. Field replaceable mounting, as well as solder attachment is supported. A standardized management interface is also provided.
The MSA technical specification is available from the Alvesta and Cypress Web sites.
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