LISLE, IL — Ten industry-leading transceiver component companies have announced the public release of the IBPAK multi-source agreement specification. Agilent Technologies, Infineon Technologies, InfiniCon Systems, Mindspeed Technologies, Molex Incorporated, Optical Communication Products, Picolight, Sun Microsystems, Tyco Electronics, and W. L. Gore & Associates participated in forming the new multi-source agreement to provide the common specification for hot-pluggable 4X copper transceivers and 4X/12X fiberoptic transceivers that support InfiniBand defined ports.
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The IBPAK specification enables multiple compatible sources of front-panel, hot-swap capable, 10Gbit/s (4-lane) and 30 Gbit/s (12-lane) transceivers, including the electrical host connector and guide rail. Solutions for 12X copper transceivers are not precluded and may be added later based on market activity.
The IBPAK specification incorporates the high-speed-electrical, copper-cable, and fiber-attachment requirements defined in InfiniBand Architecture Specification Volume 2, Release 1.1, and adds the necessary definition for the electrical connector, package outline, guide rail, hot-swap (hot-pluggable), test, and control features to enable compatible and interchangeable solutions for 4X copper cable ports and 4X/12X fiberoptic ports. Transceivers based on this MSA are expected to function as transparent, re-timing repeaters, providing robust board-to-board and inter-chassis interconnections enabling fabric linking equipment within data centers among InfiniBand servers or between servers and storage equipment.
The IBPAK specification also identifies common product specifications for the host PCB layout, front-panel requirements, EMI seal, electrical and management interfaces, and thermal, EMI, and ESD requirements. IBPAK transceivers are expected to provide signal conditioning, vendor and product information, status reports. and control via a serial interface.
Now that the details of the specification are available to the industry, other transceiver and component manufacturers can produce compatible products. Optical module companies involved in specifying the IBPAK agreement expect to begin shipping IBPAK-compatible transceivers next year. Guide rails and host-board connectors are available for designers.
