Spectra7 demos 800Gbit/s active copper cables, receives first chip order
Spectra7 is showing its GC1122 analog chip for 112G PAM4 signalling in test systems with Keysight, Multilane and LeCroy.
The companies are demonstrating robust performance and testing of 800Git/s Active Copper Cables (ACC) for hyperscale data centre applications. Spectra7 says its analog GaugeChanger GC1122 chips used in ACCs offer significant cost, size, and energy consumption value versus competing Active Electrical Cables (AECs) and Active Optical Cables (AOCs) that use Digital Signal Processing (DSP).
Last month Spectra7 received its first order for production GC1122 analog chips supporting active copper cables at 800 Gbit/s and 1.6 Tbit/s from a major Chinese cable supplier that serves both North American and Chinese data centres.
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“We are excited to receive the first order for our production GC1122 chips,” said Spectra7 CEO Raouf Halim. “Cables using these chips will be used in qualification at major Hyperscalers in both North America and China, and continues our progress with hyperscale data center customers deploying the most advanced implementations, such as artificial intelligence. Hyperscalers are increasingly sensitive to the high power requirements for other cabling options, which can exceed the power required by the switch itself. Spectra7’s ACC cables provide a unique solution to this challenge and reduce both the capital cost and operating cost of a hyperscale data center.”
“We expect these qualification activities to be complete in Q2 in order to support significant deployments in the second half of 2024 at several hyperscalers,” said Halim. “We also believe the ACC connectivity market opportunity is estimated to reach $1 billion by 2027.”
The demo with MultiLane shows Spectra7’s ACC cables successfully interoperating with the ML4015E Digital Sampling Oscilloscope (DSO) Test System at 112G PAM4 signaling that is used for 800Gbps port speeds. The demo will highlight a 112G PAM4 Eye Diagram showing superior signal integrity.
The Keysight demonstration with the AresONE-M 800GE QSFP-DD800 Layer 1-3 Test System at 800Gbit/s with link training produced a very robust low bit error rate (BER) of 3.3e-9 which demonstrates a wide margin over standard required BER.
The demo with Teledyne LeCroy’s Xena Z800 800GE QSFP-DD800 Test System also showed robust low pre-FEC (BER) which demonstrates a wide margin over standard required BER.
“MultiLane prides itself on offering solutions that enable top-tier testing at a large scale,” said Elias Khoury, MultiLane Product Line Manager for TDR and cable and transceiver testing. “We are delighted to be working with Spectra7 and their cable partners as they anticipate bringing their 112Gbps products to mass production in 2024.”
“We are seeing significant interest from every hyperscaler to get sample 800Gbps cables that are enabled by our GC1122.” said Halim. “MultiLane is a close and valued partner. Their validation of our technology will help accelerate the adoption of 800Gbps interconnects using our GaugeChanger GC1122 chips.”
“Keysight is a technology and market leader in the Ethernet test equipment market,” said Halim. “Their validation of robust performance of our GaugeChanger technology in 800Gbps ACC interconnects is a significant milestone in the coming volume deployment of our data centre product line.”
“We are excited to be working with Spectra7 on showcasing Active Copper Cable options for the rapidly expanding data centre interconnect market,” said Claus Hoyer, VP Technology and Architecture at XENA/Teledyne LeCroy. “Spectra7 has created a compelling solution to address the dramatically increasing power and cost of data centre interconnects.”
www.multilaneinc.com; www.spectra7.com; www.keysight.com; www.lecroy.com
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