September 13, 2004 Nashua, NH--Xignal Technologies (Munich) is releasing its intellectual property for a 10-Gbit/sec CMOS XFI interface for signal conditioner ICs in XFP transceiver modules. The XFI electrical interface design can also be used as a serial 10-Gbit/sec fiber-optic interface.
Xignal licenses its intellectual property blocks to IC manufacturers or equipment companies with ASIC divisions. The company develops the entire chip, measures and characterizes engineering samples, and then shows the chip samples to prospective customers. The benefit to the customer is a shorter design cycle, reduced risk and cost, and faster time to market.
The XT38720 XFI-compliant chip design contains a 32:1 multiplexer and demultiplexer. Unique characteristics of the chip design include the small footprint (4mm²), low power consumption (350mW), and an integrated limiting amplifier. The jitter performance is below the XFP Rev. 4.0 standard requirements.
"One of the reasons that we implemented a limiting amplifier is so that you have a very versatile IP block which you can use as an standard-compliant XFI interface or you use it for the optical side of a module, and have the complete 10-Gbit/sec SERDES, which has the 32-bit multiplexing/demultiplexing ratio," explains Holger Hoeltke, vice president of marketing at Xignal.
In this application, two interconnected XFI interfaces, one with the integrated limiting amplifier option selected "on," could represent a complete signal conditioner IC without any additional circuitry surrounding it.
Currently available, the 10-Gbit/sec CMOS XFI interface has already been sold to one customer. It is suitable for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Fibre Channel, and 10-Gbit/sec copper connections.
--KR