TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL) recently showcased its expanded range of copper and optical connectivity solutions at the DesignCon 2015 Expo, held Jan. 28-29 in Santa Clara, CA. At the show, TE worked with a number of its silicon chip partner-suppliers to present several demonstrations, including the following:
• A Multi-Architecture STRADA Whisper 25G System – This demo was comprised of a tabletop chassis showing the capability of TE’s STRADA Whisper connector to support four different architectures: traditional backplane, cable backplane, direct plug orthogonal (DPO) and midplane orthogonal (MPO), using TI retimer chips. The demonstration showed the performance of all four architectures simultaneously with multi-channel capabilities at 25 Gb/s while also showing the broad range of available STRADA Whisper configurations.
• STRADA Whisper 56G Silicon Demonstration – This joint demo between TE and Credo Semiconductor displayed TE’s STRADA Whisper backplane connector system operating at 50Gb/s with NRZ signaling from a Credo ASIC solution that integrates the company's 56G NRZ serializer/deserializer (SerDes).
• STRADA Whisper 25G Backplane Demonstration – This demonstration with Altera and Semtech featured the two semiconductor suppliers interoperating over a conventional 1m backplane featuring TE’s STRADA Whisper connector system. Visitors saw how multiple semiconductor suppliers can operate error free per the IEEE’s 802.3bj specification at data rates of 25.7Gb/s with conventional architectures.
• 40G Server/Switch Demonstration – This demonstration with AppliedMicro showed TE’s QSFP28 connector replacing 10 SFP+ connectors to perform server I/O aggregation at the chassis level.
• 40G Serial PAM4 Direct Attached Cable (DAC) Demonstration – TE and Broadcom showcased what the companies called the industry’s first 40 Gb/s PAM4 IC, demonstrating how it enables TE to develop and deploy the next generation of DAC cables with higher throughput while optimizing power and cost. Compared to previous generations of transmission technology, the companies say these new cables using PAM4 achieve 40 Gb/s transmission with two twinax cables, versus eight twinax cables, resulting in a lighter, more flexible DAC.
• QSFP28-SFP28 Breakout Demonstration – TE’s demonstrated the capability of a 3m 30AWG and a 3m 28AWG QSFP28 to 4xSFP28 passive copper break-out cable assembly operating at a 25 Gb/s data rate. TE also exhibited the signal integrity performance of a single data transmission channel via an eye pattern diagram.
• zQSFP+(QSFP28) Thermal Demonstration – This demonstration showed a populated 1 rack unit chassis with three standard 2x2 zQSFP+ cages delivering 100 Gb/s, 4 x 25 Gb/s performance. It modeled real-time transceiver temperature data in customizable conditions.
• Coolbit Optical Engine Display – Finally at DesignCon, TE's Coolbit optical engine display demoed highlights some of the major benefits that occur when high density and low power optics are embedded into designs (in comparison to front panel pluggable solutions).
MORE NEWS: CommScope acquiring TE Connectivity networking biz