October 9, 2006 -- Belden announced that it participated in a "full fledged, live demonstration" of 10GBASE-T technology, held last month at Solarflare Communications in Irvine, California. The tests were performed using Solarflare's newly-developed 10Xpress 10GBASE-T PHY evaluation boards.
According to a press release, the validation trials were performed on a 100-meter Belden IBDN System 10GX channel in a worst-case, 4-connector channel configuration, as specified in the TIA augmented Category 6 draft standard, currently under development in the TIA TR 42.7 subcommittee. A 7-cable ("six-around-one") configuration was used, with the Belden 10GX cables bundled every eight inches.
The 10-Gbit/sec Ethernet signals were generated using a traffic generator at the XAUI interface to the PHY evaluation boards. The 10-Gbit/sec Ethernet signal was looped back at the far end transceiver, and the receiver frames compared to the sending frames. Live 10GBASE-T traffic was transmitted simultaneously on all six neighboring channels, simulating a worst-case alien crosstalk environment. There were no errors detected for the duration of the testing, which lasted over several hours. The signal-to-noise ratio monitored during the testing was in excess of 25 dB, providing a "good margin" over the standard, say the companies.
According to the companies, the event marked "the first real life test to demonstrate the performance capability of 10GBASE-T, using Solarflare's 10GBASE-T product over Belden's 10GX augmented Category 6 cabling." (A real-life example of what this means would be the difference between transmitting high resolution pictures (600 dpi) at 20 per minute at 1 Gbit/sec, versus 200 per minute at 10 Gbit/sec.)
Belden notes that its IBDN System 10GX is not an improved or boosted Category 6 system, but an entirely new platform incorporating a series of enabling technologies to ensure the highest level of alien crosstalk isolation, and the best electrical performance during high frequency operation.
