GigOptix (search for GigOptix), provider of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world, has announced that its HXR4104, a 4x10.3-Gbit/sec Transimpedance Limiting Amplifier (TIA/LA), and its HXT4104, a 4x10.3-Gbit/sec vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (search for VCSEL) driver, are available now as a chipset.
GigOptix says the HXR/T4104 chipset simplifies system design by being fully programmable via an industry standard 2-wire interface. This enables control of signal peaking, modulation, and average currents in addition to providing access to temperature and output power monitoring on a channel-by-channel basis.
The parallel VCSEL driver will enable a new generation of low-cost active cable products for High Performance Computing (HPC), Very Short Reach (VSR) communication, and consumer applications and is designed to be compatible with the Quad Small form Factor Pluggable (search for QSFP) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA), say company representatives. Applications include IEEE 802.3ba (pre-standard) Ethernet transceivers, Infiniband QDR transceivers, infiniband QDR active cables, and proprietary multi-channel optical modules.
The company believes that optical interconnect is the wave of the future for high-bandwidth connections as copper reaches its limits. At speeds beyond 10 Gbits/sec optical options are demanded, as they offer lower power dissipation with a compact size, and they eliminate the serious challenges of managing electro-magnetic interference (EMI) in sensitive systems.
"We already have customers evaluating and showing a lot of interest in the HXR/T4104 chipset as a replacement to our current generation of parallel products," reports Julie Tipton, vice president of marketing at GigOptix. "Our new customers are also using the chipset for completely new application areas. They know we offer great performance devices based on our teams many years of experience shipping and continuously improving these products," she says. "These devices prove the excellent performance of the new advanced process and are the building blocks forI12-channel devices, which we will be shipping, in volume, in Q4 this year."
Samples of the HXT4104 and HXR4104 are available along with an evaluation board. Production quantities are expected for shipment in Q4 2008.
To speed time to market, the HXR/T4104 evaluation samples also serve as a platform to evaluate the identically performing, 12-channel device, the HXR/T4112,Iwhich will be available in production quantities in Q4 2008, the company confirms.
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