Product category:
Analogue and Mixed Signal ICs
News Release from: Quellan | Subject: QLx4000 series lane extender chips
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 03 May 2007
Chips come in small packages for low
power
Lane extender chips combine small size with functions to enable the production of active cables which reduce interconnect power by hundreds of kilowatts.
Quellan's QLx4000 series lane extender chips combine a sophisticated 4-channel equaliser with integrated higher layer functions to enable the production of an active cable that that ensures full compliance with the QSFP (quad small form-factor pluggable) specification The chip may also be used in line cards, switches, blade servers and chassis
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 12 Dec 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Quellan's Lane Managers deliver interconnect at datarates of up to 6.25Gbit/s over copper cabling or system chassis.
"Cable weight and compute density have become exponentially critical in next generation data centres", says Joel Goergen, Chief Scientist at Force10 Networks.
"Power consumption is a paramount issue, and the industry is devoid of low-energy, small-form-factor solutions for this escalating problem".
"Quellan's new QSFP ready devices are an innovative answer to this massive problem".
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Quellan has achieved a 200% reach extension for the burgeoning 10 gigabit Ethernet standard.
Analogue devices make cables more intelligent
Quellan can now transform data centre cable interconnects from passive, nonactive devices to intelligent "roadways" for use in today's mega data centres.
Power consumption and density are paramount issues in data-centre economics.
Today's cable interconnect conduits can exceed 360cm in diameter and weigh up to 3 tons, and interconnect power consumption is heading toward megawatt levels.
Data centres have traditionally made use of bulky, conduit blocking cables and connectors or power hungry fibre optics - eroding data-centre efficiency.
Combining the industry's new high density QSFP connector with Quellan's Q:Active chip enables much longer, thinner copper cabling - eliminating the need to convert to power-hungry fibre optics.
The resultant "active cable" improves data centre economics by reducing interconnect power by hundreds of kilowatts and makes room for thousands of additional server ports in the existing footprint.
"The new QSFP connector delivers a new level of performance and density to the data centre", says Gourgen Oganessyan of Molex.
"Putting Quellan inside solves the distance and cable thickness problem - yielding the ultimate solution for data centre density and cost".
"Extending copper on thinner gauge cable is critical meeting customer requirements for cable management, distance and bandwidth", says Lloyd Dickman, CTO for InfiniBand Products at QLogic.
"Coupling Quellan's analogue technology to QSFP delivers the additional benefit of higher density - a winning combination".
The fully embeddable devices deliver four channels of processing in a compact 4 x 7mm package for easy integration in any cable shell, line card or backplane.
Power dissipation is just 240mW.
Aggregate device bandwidth ranges from 10Gbit/s (4x2.5Gbit/s) to 34Gbit/s (4x8.5Gbit/s).
The QLx4300 and 4600 are now available for sampling with prices starting at under US $2.00 per channel.
The QLx4800 will be available for sampling in Q307.
"Lower power consumption and greater density are the most important challenges our customers are facing", says Quellan CEO, Tony Stelliga.
"So we took the industry's smallest connector - QSFP - for a 33% increase in port density and inserted our analogue technology to deliver a 300% reach extension over copper and an 80% power savings over fibre optics - case closed".
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