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200G and 400G Form Factors Explosion?

Posted by source https://ethernetalliance.org/ on 2018 Apr 13th

200G and 400G Form Factors Explosion?

200G/400G pluggables

One solution to increasing faceplate density has been to decrease the size of the current QSFP28 pluggable, this effort has led to the µQSFP transceiver that can support four electrical channels at up to 28 Gbits/sec. This allows for a 33-percent increase in density with up to 72 ports (up to 7.2 Tb capacity) per RU. 

  • Double Density QSFP (QSFP-DD), an upcoming MSA form factor that can support up to 200G/400G with 25G or 50G over 16 lanes. It is boosted to be the smallest 400G module where a full 36 ports of these on a single rack unit can provide 14.4 Tb of bandwidth. 
  • OSFP an optical transceiver capable of supporting transmission rates up to 400 Gbps (8x50G initially) in a size that will enable 32 ports per 1RU line card. The modules will support reaches from the data center to metro networks and, according to the MSA, will be "slightly wider and deeper" than a QSFP module. The module to be able to support 800-Gbps operations in the future.
  • CDFP is the first 400G form factor with a slightly larger pitch than the CFP4 at 32mm to support 16 lanes at 25 Gbits/sec—a single RU can deliver over 5 Tbits/sec. 
  • CFP8 same size as the CFP2, the CFP8 transceiver supports eight 50G lanes for 400G capability enabling up to 6.4 Tb/s in a RU.

“There is significant investment going into the QSFP-DD and OSFP modules,” 

The OSFP is a fresh design, has a larger power envelope - of the order of 15W compared to the 12W of the QSFP-DD - and has a roadmap that supports 800-gigabit data rates. In contrast, the QSFP-DD is backwards compatible with the QSFP and that has significant advantages.

200G/400G Cabling 

Many of these newer optical transceivers require the standardization of a 16-fiber and 32-fiber MPO connector. The MPO connector has evolved from a single row 4 to 12 fibers to 2 to 6 rows of 12 fibers to meet the changing requirements of 10G, 40G, and 100G applications. 

  • Often used with the QSFP28 transceiver, the 12-fiber MPO uses 8 total fibers with 4 lanes each for transmitting and receiving data at 25 Gbits/sec. 
  • The 24-fiber MPO that is often used with the CFPx transceivers, uses 20 total fibers with 10 lanes each for transmitting and receiving data at 10G. 
  • The 16-fiber and 32-fiber MPO connectors is yet another progression for 400G with 1 to 2 rows of 16 fibers.
  • Senko’s new CS connector is specifically designed for Data Centre 400G optimization. Intended to complement the form factor of the next generation of (OSFP/ QSFP-DD) transceiver modules, the CS connector meets the requirement for 2x100G/200G CWDM4 transceivers requiring two pairs of TX/RX. Customer benefits include:
    • 35 % reduction in size. 
    • Uses tried and trusted LC standard size 1.25m ferrule. 

source https://ethernetalliance.org/the-2018-ethernet-roa...