Product category:
Boards and Backplanes
News Release from: Molex UK | Subject: GbX FR408 reference backplane
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 24 January 2005
Reference backplane runs for a metre
The GbX FR408 reference backplane has achieved a milestone in system performance by demonstrating a 1.0m 10Gbit/s channel with Xilinx's Virtex-II Pro X FPGA over Isola's affordable FR408 material.
The GbX FR408 reference backplane demonstrator from Molex has successfully achieved a significant milestone in total real system performance by demonstrating a 1.0m 10Gbit/s channel with Xilinx's Virtex-II Pro X FPGA over Isola's affordable FR408 material The reference backplane also provides system and chip design teams an improved method of predicting a component's performance capabilities in an actual datacom or telecom system
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 26 Jan 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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The system is also built with a full range of differential PCB channel lengths, allowing designers to manipulate these key design variables that greatly influence the transmission quality from transmitter to receiver.
Bottom and top channel routings evaluate transmission performance throughout the board height, while the "bridge" feature allows for the test and design of outboard components, such as I/O connectors.
"Too often, design engineering teams invest time and money without knowing a system's full performance capability".
"This reference backplane gives them a tool that the entire design team can use", said Gary Humbert, Product Manager, Molex.
"The GbX FR408 reference backplane, with a Xilinx FPGA, has produced a milestone achievement by showing a true 10Gbit/s NRZ channel with the GbX press fit backplane connector over a long channel through FR408 material".
The GbX FR408 reference backplane is available by request through local Molex sales engineers and also by contacting Molex product management.
"The barriers to next generation backplane system deployment have fallen".
"Standard 10Gbit/s NRZ-signalling, with full crosstalk, over more than 1m of FR408, is an obvious demonstration of physical layer feasibility", stated Brian Seemann, Director of Technical Marketing for Xilinx's Communications Technology Division.
"With the board design methodologies from the Molex reference backplane demonstrator, GbX connectors, conventional signalling and system-level functionality in the Virtex-II Pro X and Virtex-4, designers can develop and manufacture low cost backplane systems that scale anywhere from 2.5 to 10Gbit/s".
The GbX FR408 system includes extra channels in the form of clock lines that can be used for increased signal support or as experimental lines.
It also includes an added eight-inch channel link with a loopback feature that allows for optimal testing.
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