Avago unveils Vortex 100G gearbox Ethernet/OTN PHYs

Avago Technologies (NASDAQ: AVGO) has introduced its new Vortex Gearbox family of physical layer transceiver (PHY) devices supporting Ethernet and Optical Transport Networking (OTN). The company claims that the first member of the new product range, the Vortex Gearbox AVSP-1104, is the industry’s longest-reach 10:4 gearbox IC, withstanding up to 32 dB of channel loss. The devices feature Avago’s 28-nm CMOS SerDes technology that has demonstrated compliance with IEEE CAUI and various Common Electrical Interface (CEI) standards, including CEI-11G-SR, CEI-25G-LR, and CEI-28G-VSR. The Vortex Gearbox devices also incorporate Avago’s proprietary decision feedback equalization (DFE) architecture, providing low overall power consumption, low data latency, and best-in-class jitter and crosstalk performance, Avago asserts. "With over 250 million SerDes channels shipped over the past decade, Avago has established a record of developing leading-edge embedded SerDes cores for high-performance ASICs," said Frank Ostojic, vice president and general manager of Avago’s ASIC products division. "Building on this foundation, we now offer the AVSP-1104, the first product in the Vortex Gearbox family. We are delivering 100GbE solutions now and will enable designers to create systems incorporating serial communication at rates greater than 28-Gbps in the near future.” The Vortex Gearbox AVSP-1104 is a single-chip PHY IC designed for high-density 100G Ethernet and OTN applications. The device is ideal for driving both backplane and portside applications, according to Avago. Key features include:

• Long-reach performance withstanding up to 32 dB of channel loss
• hole-free operation from 1 to 28 Gbps
• gearbox functionality for full-duplex conversion of four lanes (4x25 Gbps, 4x28 Gbps) to 10 lanes (10x10 Gbps, 10x11 Gbps)
• option for configuration as a retimer function for full-duplex transmission of 10 lanes
• programmable Tx/Rx equalization of all SerDes interfaces
• bit-error rate (BER) of 1e-20
• easy-to-use diagnostic software for remote debugging.

“On the basis of its proven SerDes technology and broad portfolio of ASICs, ASSPs, IP and optics, Avago enters the PHY ASSP market with instant credibility,” said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at The Linley Group. “The features included in this first member of Avago’s new Vortex Gearbox family of customer channel products meet or exceed the requirements in both backplane and portside applications.”

Samples of the AVSP-1104 are available now in 320-pin fcBGA package.

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