networkZONE Products for the week of February 23, 2004
Quake Technologies Says . . .
10G Made Easy -- Quake's 10G Serial-to-XAUI PHY Device
Saves Space, Slashes Power To Sub-1 W
Quake Technologies, Inc has announced the availability of the QT2022, its third-generation, integrated 10G serial-to-XAUI PHY device. This high-performance device not only benefits from the extensive field-proven experience of the previous generations of Quake's products, but with an industry-leading power consumption of less than 900mW, it optimizes next-generation modules and system cards.
10 Gb/s Ethernet and Fibre Channel are rapidly gaining popularity. The 10 Gb/s ports in switches and servers are undergoing changes to reduce the system cost, accommodate more ports per line card and include more functionality per port. Each component on the system card is scrutinized for power and performance. 10 Gb/s PHYs are migrating from XENPAK/XPAK/X2 modules onto the system cards and mezzanine modules. This introduces a new set of functional requirements for the components.
The 10 Gb/s module requirements are also changing. As 10 Gb/s data transmission faces new challenges, the modules need to include additional functionality, such as the Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) circuitry. As a result, more physical layer circuitry needs to fit into the same area for the same power budget.
"Our first- and second-generation SerDes are ideal for current modules and system cards," said Daniel Trépanier, president and CEO of Quake Technologies. "The new QT2022 is addressing the next-generation applications that need the combination of low power, small footprint and low jitter. This product is designed to respond to our customers' future needs, and is an indication of Quake's ongoing new product development initiative."
Extensive feature set for less than 900mW of power.
The QT2022 is a bi-directional 10 Gb/s serial-to-XAUI physical layer device (PHY). It performs the full physical layer processing for 10 Gb/s Ethernet and Fibre Channel and integrates the PMA, PCS and XGXS layers onto a single chip. The QT2022 converts four 3.125 Gb/s XAUI lanes into a serial 10.3-10.57 Gb/s data stream. The serial interface is compliant with the XFI requirements and can be connected to an electro-optical interface or an XFP module. For communication, the QT2022 includes a standard MDIO/MDC and a 2-wire interface together with a Non-Volatile Register set (NVR). The QT2022 is fully compliant with IEEE802.3ae-2003 10GE and INCITS/T11 10GFC standards, XENPAK/XPAK/X2 and XFP Multi Source Agreements (MSA).
The QT2022 utilizes proprietary design techniques to achieve industry-leading jitter performance. With less than 0.7ps of rms jitter generation, the QT2022 exceeds the standards requirement and allows ample margin for other components in the system.
The 10 Gb/s serial receiver includes an integrated post amplifier with a high sensitivity of 10 mV pp per side. The built-in receive equalizer successfully recovers data over as much as 12" of standard FR4 printed circuit board, and provides a cost effective solution for the migration of 10 Gb/s serial lines into system cards. The output amplitude of both the XAUI and the serial interfaces can be adjusted for optimal power and performance.
As with all Quake Technologies devices, the QT2022 includes a full suite of built-in test features, including jitter pattern and PRBS generators and checkers. These test features help speed up the development of modules and systems using the QT2022, and also alleviate bottlenecks in high-volume production testing by removing the need for expensive test equipment.
To simplify the system card, the QT2022 includes a JTAG interface.
Interoperability between the QT2022 and the XFP modules from a variety of XFP vendors has been verified using the Quake Technologies QT2022/XFP reference board.
The QT2022 requires a single 1.2V supply, is manufactured in CMOS technology,
and is packaged in a compact 12x12 mm2 PBGA with 1mm ball pitch.
analogZONE Says . . .
Low power is the current mantra in Gigabit interface design. And it's no wonder with small form factor optical modules allowing manufacturers to cram up to four (or more) 10 Gbit/s ports on a line card today, with higher densities expected soon. Chip makers like Quake have a great deal of incentive to get their power down -- as long as they can maintain the tight jitter and noise specs dictated by these higher speeds. From what I can see of their new QT2022 10-Gbit/s XAUI/PHY device, Quake has stepped up to the plate and delivered a very versatile part that will drive a variety of 10G Ethernet or FibreChannel optical applications while drawing under a Watt.
Quake has worked hard to accommodate the mezzanine
card applications for XFP and other modules that are growing in popularity
for FibreChannel and especially 10G Ethernet. Besides delivering a very
small package that meets the tight pace requirements, the part supports
the unique electrical interfaces that are peculiar to this application space.
This includes the IEEE802.3ae standard MDC/MDIO interface that communicates
with the MAC. It also sports an I2C bus for configuration management
via an EEPROM, or the optical module itself in the case of an XFP application.
The QT2022's output boasts adjustable levels for FC and XAUI, a feature that allows you to tune its output to optimize power. Since these will go into Telco and Enterprise applications, I also appreciate the multiple loopback and testability features Quake has built into their part, including a multi-pattern test generator for both the copper XAUI and 10G optical interface.
With under 0.7 ps of rms jitter, and a jitter tolerance that exceeds IEEE802.3ae and XFP requirements, the QT2022 delivers stability I'd expect of a part with much hungrier PLL/CDR circuitry. Time prevented me from digging too deeply into how they manage to do this, but I'll try to grill them a bit next month when I visit Quake on my annual "Silicon Tundra" press tour of the Ottawa/Kanata high-tech belt.
Quake is taking a big gamble with its commitment to the single-fiber 10G market, pinning its hopes that 10G module sales will swell from barely over 1200 units in Q3 2003 (courtesy of the Del Oro Group) to a number that will support life in this sector. Their hopes may be well-founded given the growth of Gigabit to the desktop, and the power savings offered could allow manufacturers to put one or more extra line connections on their blades. It's still a crap shoot as to whether the X2/XFP module makers can grab the emerging market share away from the slightly more-established CX-4/LX4 quad 2.5-Gbit copper/fiber products from providers such as BitBlitz. Since the choice of physical media is pretty much in the hands of the end user, much of the success or failure will be a simple matter of providing the lowest dollars-per-connection. It's still uncertain whether it will be cheaper to make four slower-speed lasers and simpler optical connections, or one higher-speed device, but the low power and compact form factor that the QT2202 brings to the table will provide some significant ammunition to module makers as the struggle to dominate the nascent 10-G market begins to heat up.
The QT2022 is sampling, priced at $200. A complete evaluation kit and an XFP-based reference board are available.
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