OIF CEI-112G Project tackles 100-Gbps serial electrical links

Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) agreed at their recently concluded third quarter meeting to inaugurate the very short reach (VSR) CEI-112G 100G Serial Electrical Link project. As its name implies, the proposed chip-to-module interface project would support a nominal lane rate of 112 Gbps.

The group says it also plans to tackle shorter and longer-reach applications at the same transmission rate in the future.

The CEI-112G-VSR project follows on from the OIF's CEI-56G-VSR work (see "OIF to highlight 56G interfaces, pluggable coherent transceivers at OFC"). It comes as technology developers target single-lane optical transmission at 100 Gbps to support such applications as the 4x100G PMD for 400 Gigabit Ethernet (see "IEEE P802.3bs Task Force adopts serial 100G for 400 Gigabit Ethernet").

"Optical lane speeds have run faster than electrical lane speeds since the introduction of 10G Ethernet. While this is not a problem in the early days of a new data rate, the lowest module cost is achieved when optical and electrical lane speeds are the same," said Dale Murray, Principal Analyst with LightCounting Market Research. "The first optical modules running 100 Gbps serial are expected in 2018, so now is the time for the OIF to begin work on this CEI-112G project."

"As bandwidth increases, electrical interfaces need to reflect that trend. Given the lead times, development of standards for the next generation of electrical links needs to start now," said David Stauffer of Kandou Bus and the OIF's Physical and Link Layer Working Group Chair and board member. "The OIF is continuing its roadmap for 100 Gbps through 400 Gbps and beyond applications, addressing multiple reaches for chip-to-chip and chip-to module interfaces."

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