Mezzanine card speeds system interconnects

Zarlink Semiconductor has introduced the ZLE60400 AMC (advanced mezzanine card) optical extender card.

Zarlink Semiconductor has introduced the ZLE60400 AMC (advanced mezzanine card) optical extender card.

Available as both a reference design and ready-to-manufacture solution, the card reduces design time and complexity of optically enabled line cards used in signal processing, networking and communications equipment.

The ZLE60400 optical extender card for Serial RapidIO delivers up to 25Gbit/s of ATCA (Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture) and microTCA system interconnect in a hot pluggable, standard AMC form factor.

Increasing demand for bandwidth-intensive, multimedia-rich web applications requires higher-speed system interconnects within networking and communications equipment.

RapidIO technology eliminates potential traffic "bottlenecks" by defining an open-standard, scaleable architecture for chip-to-chip and circuit board-to-circuit board interconnects within wireless infrastructure, edge networking, storage, military and scientific equipment.

"As equipment manufacturers are pressured to meet higher-speed interconnect demands, the ZLE60400 optical extender card meets ATCA high-speed backplane and chassis requirements and allows Serial RapidIO to be brought 'out of the box'", said Dr Marco Ghisoni, Product Manager, Optical Products, Zarlink Semiconductor.

"Integrating Zarlink's parallel fibre optic module technology, ZLE60400 card provides scalable, high throughput interconnections of beyond 100m within equipment racks, shelves and boards".

The stand-alone solution can be used with off-the-shelf processing and I/O boards to create both proof-of-concept, testing and development systems or a final system design.

The ZLE60400 card supports a high degree of flexibility by interoperating with a range of industry-standard connectors, including AMC, SMA (SubMiniature version A), HIP (Hardware Interoperability Platform).

Optical interconnection is via industry-standard MPO/MTP connectorised optical fibre ribbon cable.

"RapidIO technology continues to be widely adopted as the primary interconnect technology for next-generation telecommunications equipment", said Tom Cox, executive director of the RapidIO Trade Association.

"Zarlink's new optical extender card reference design is a key addition that will help simplify development and speed time to market of RapidIO-based systems".

The fully populated ZLE60400 AMC optical extender card reference design is available now.

Optical fibre ribbon cables are also available at request.

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