Press Release
XENPAK Group Announces Updated Specifications and New
Members to its Multi-Source Agreement for 10 Gigabit
Ethernet Transceivers
FOR RELEASE: MONDAY OCTOBER 1, 2001
The XENPAK multi-source agreement (MSA)
group announced today that it has completed work on Revision
2.0 of its technical specifications for 10 Gigabit Ethernet
transceivers. This work builds on the initial MSA platform,
announced in March 2001, which defines a uniform transceiver
form factor, size, connector type and electrical pin-out,
and conforms to the proposed IEEE 802.3ae standard.
In addition, seven new optical component companies have
joined the XENPAK MSA group -- ExceLight, Finisar, Hitachi
Cable, JDS Uniphase, Stratos Lightwave, Ignis Optics and
Vitesse. The MSA group now includes 22 member companies,
making XENPAK both the industry’s first and most widely
accepted standard for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, front-panel
pluggable transceivers.
"With this revision, the MSA group has finalized all
key characteristics for XENPAK devices, including mechanical
dimensions, key functions, pin-outs, and optical
interfaces," said Michael Peppler, strategic marketing
manager for Agere and chairman of the XENPAK group.
"This gives system manufacturers the confidence they
need to design systems around a stable set of interface
specifications."
The revision addresses several major enhancements to the
XENPAK design, including:
- An Adaptable Power Supply (APS), which allows a system
using XENPAK to sense the exact voltage required by a
particular XENPAK transceiver and supply any
corresponding voltage between 0.9 and 1.8 volts. The APS
will allow equipment makers to use new, lower power
XENPAK transceivers as they are introduced while
maintaining backwards compatibility.
- A Programmable Link Alarm Status which replaces a
number of status and alarm signals (which were provided
as discrete I/O signals in XENPAK Rev 1.0) with a single
interrupt signal supported by several module performance
registers.
- New non-volatile memory location registers to support
10 Gigabit Fiber Channel, WAN Interface Sub-layer (WIS)
and Link Signaling Sub-layer (LSS) applications.
"The Revision 2.0 enhancements to XENPAK really
strengthen and ‘future-proof’ the platform," added
Antony Spilman, Agilent Strategic Marketing Manager for 10
GbE Transceivers and XENPAK editor. "We are confident
this can only increase the strong level of design activity
we already see around this platform as we go forward."
The XENPAK MSA group now includes twenty-two optical
module suppliers: Agere Systems, Agilent Technologies, Blaze
Networks, ExceLight, Finisar, Hitachi Cable, Ignis Optics,
Infineon, JDS Uniphase, Intel, Luminent, Mistubishi
Electronics, Molex, Nortel Networks, OpNext, Optillion,
Picolight, Pine Photonics, Stratos Lightwave, Tyco
Electronics, Versatile Optical Networks, and IBM Corp.
For access to the Revision 2.0 document, or for member
company contacts, visit the XENPAK web site at http://www.xenpak.org.
|
