dataMate Products, a division of Methode Electronics, Inc., is introducing the industry's first Small Form-Factor Pluggable transceiver which offers Gigabit Ethernet speeds over Category 5 unshielded twisted-pair copper cable.

The product is designed to bring gigabit-level performance to environments with an existing or new infrastructure of Category 5 UTP while adding the high-density benefit of the compact Small Form-Factor (SFP) form factor. The product mates using a conventional RJ45 interface, and fits into industry-standard MSA-compliant SFP equipment. The transceiver is designed to eliminate the need for exotic copper cable or expensive optical fiber cable to achieve gigabit-speed bi-directional communication.

dataMate's RJ45 SFP transceiver for Gigabit Ethernet over Category 5 UTP is designed for LAN backbones or drops up to 100 meters where gigabit performance is needed using standard Category 5 UTP cable. The compact SFP packaging is analogous to a reduced-size GBIC, and allows the density of equipment racks to be virtually doubled.

One of the keys to achieving gigabit performance in the SFP package has been dataMate's development of an RJ45 connector with built-in magnetic coupling circuitry. The Ethernet physical layer specification mandates the use of a magnetically-coupled interface. This requirement has made it difficult for other transceiver OEMs to fit everything into an SFP package, and still achieve reliable gigabit performance.

dataMate is based in Chicago. For more information visit www.methode.com.