Demystifying 40 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer Interfaces in Data Centers
Rita Horner Synopsys
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 1 Evolution of Ethernet Speeds
100 GE Data Rate (4x25 GE) (Mbps) 100 GE (10x10 GE) 100,000 10 Gigabit Ethernet 10,000 Gigabit 40 GE Ethernet (4x10 GE) 1000 Fast Ethernet FDDI 100 Ethernet 10
1 1980 1990 1995 1998 2002 2010 2014
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 2 Different Interfaces in a Chassis
1. Chip-to-Chip Port side 2. Chip-to-Module (direct) 3. Chip-to-Backplane 3
2 1 2 3 1
2 1 3
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 3 Evolution of 10 GE Port Side Aggregated 10 GE (XAUI) Serial 10 GE
. IEEE 802.3ae-2002 – 10 Gigabit Ethernet supporting both port side and backplane using aggregated XAUI (3.125 Gbps per lane in a x4 configuration) with 8b/10b encoding
10 GE Module form factor migration Gen1 X2 Gen2 Gen3 4-lanes XAUI 300 pins 16-lanes XSBI
Xenpak SFP+ 1-lane 10G SFI 4-lanes XAUI XFP 1-lane 10G XFI
Modules with Gearbox, a.k.a. MUX/De-MUX Module with Retimer Un-retimed
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 4 10GE Port Side Module Interfaces Size Reduction Requires Power Reduction
4x 4 XENPAK Port 3.125 Gbps Gearbox ASIC SerDes XAUI or 10 GE PHY (4:1) 4 X2
4x 4 Port 3.125 Gbps Gearbox XAUI XFI Retimer XFP 10 GE ASIC SerDes (4:1) PHY 4 10 GE
Port 10.3 Gbps SerDes 10 GERetimer 10 GE SFP+ 10 GE ASIC PHY XFI SFI
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 5 Evolution of Port Densities 10GE 40GE Single row 24 x 10 GE SFP+ ports 240 Gbps Two rows 48 x 10 GE SFP+ ports 480 Gbps
Single row 4 x 40 GE CFP ports 160Gbps
Single row 12 or 16 x 40 GE QSFP ports 480 to 640 Gbps Two rows 12 or 16 x 40 GE QSFP ports 960 to 1280 Gbps
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 6 40GE Port Side Module Interfaces Size Reduction Requires Power Reduction
4x 4 Port 10.3 Gbps ASIC SerDes XLAUI Retimer CFP 40 GE PHY 4
4x Port 10.3 Gbps 40 GERetimer 40 GE QSFP 40 GE ASIC SerDes PHY XLAUI XLPPI
4x Port 10.3 Gbps 40 GE QSFP 40 GE ASIC SerDes PHY Retimer XLPPI
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 7 Different Interfaces in a Chassis
1. Chip-to-Chip Port side 2. Chip-to-Module (direct) 3. Chip-to-Backplane 3
2 1 2 3 1
2 1 3
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 8 10GE and 40GE Interfaces
Port Side Rate Interface Chip-to-Chip Chip-to-Module Backplane Fiber Optic Fiber Optic Copper Electrical XFI SFI (limiting & linear) SFI linear 10GBASE-KR
SFP+, 10GBASE-SR SFP+, DAC XFP, 10GBASE-SR 10 GE Module SFP+, 10GBASE-LR (Direct XFP, 10GBASE-LR - types SFP+, 10GBASE-LRM Attached XFP, 10GBASE-ER SFP+, 10GBASE-ER Copper)
Electrical XLAUI XLPPI 40GBASE-KR4
CFP, 40GBASE-SR4 QSFP, 40GBASE-SR4 QSFP, 40 GE Module CFP, 40GBASE-LR4 QSFP, 40GBASE-LR4 40GBASE- - types CFP, 40GBASE-ER4 QSFP, 40GBASE-ER4 CR4
Santa Clara, CA USA April-May 2014 9