A group of photonics industry leaders has formed the 4x400G MSA in order to:
- Promote a common set of optical interface specifications based on 100G per lane technology in order to advance the development and adoption of high density 1.6T pluggable optical transceivers.
- Facilitate development and adoption of 1.6T high density optical interconnects for data center and cloud networking that include 100m to 10km+ links with a focus on proven and available optical component technologies operating at 100G per lane (100G per wavelength with PAM-4 encoding).
1.6T high-density optical interconnects
- Proven, reliable, 100G/lane technologies
- Backwards compatibility with 800G, 400G
- Leverage a diverse world-wide supply base
- Accelerate development cycle
- Interoperability facilitates network migration
- Multi-vendor ecosystem for lower cost
Founding Members
Press
Photonics Technology Leaders Join Forces to Form the 4x400G MSA
New consortium to advance the development and adoption of high density 1.6T optical transceivers operating at 100 Gbps per lane
The 4x400G Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group today announced its formation as an industry consortium to advance the development and adoption of high density 1.6T pluggable optical transceivers operating at 100Gbps per lane. The founding members of the MSA include Arista, Broadcom, Intel, Molex, and AOI.
Specification
The 4x400G MSA will publish a common set of optical interface specifications and recommendations to facilitate the development and interoperability of new 1.6T capable optical interfaces. If you would like to support these efforts with our founding members - please send us an email.
About Us
The 4x400G MSA will promote a common set of optical interface specifications based on 100G per lane technology in order to advance the development and adoption of high density 1.6T pluggable optical transceivers.
We are combining forces with like minded industry leaders to promote the use of both new and existing physical interface standards which we believe can offer advantages in time-to-availability, diversity of supply base, and cost.
Contact
This MSA is open to interested parties who would like to support this effort. For more information about this MSA or membership please contact us at \u0069\u006e\u0066\u006f\u0040\u0034\u0078\u0034\u0030\u0030\u0047\u002e\u0063\u006f\u006d today.
FAQs
- Q: WHY DOES THE INDUSTRY NEED THE 4x400G MSA?
- A: Promoting the reuse of well-established and industry-standard high volume optical 400G interface specifications will enable a healthy ecosystem of partners and accelerate time to market of 1.6T optical interconnects. The 4x400G MSA will specify 1.6T interfaces which are backwards compatible with 800G and 400G standards in use today. Backwards compatibility is critically important to the industry. Since ASICs are designed to support multiple interface rates, it is critically important that there are optical interconnects available which can take advantage of this in order to provide network architects a path for incremental network upgrade to 1.6T.
- Q: IS THE 4x400G MSA DEPENDENT ON OTHER OUTSIDE STANDARDS ACTIVITY?
- A: The 4x400G MSA will promote interface solutions based on 100G per optical lane technologies and architectures, for use at 1.6T, several examples of which are already well defined or are under development in the IEEE or by other MSAs. Where necessary the 4x400G MSA will also draw from and refer to form-factor specific MSAs like the OSFP-XD MSA and the Common Module Interface Specification (CMIS).
- Q: WHAT ARE THE ANTICIPATED USE CASES OF THE 4x400G MSA?
- A: The 4x400G Multi-source Agreement will address end user needs for next-generation Ethernet network infrastructure based on 51.2T switch ASICs, by promoting fully interoperable optical links leveraging existing and proven IEEE standard 802.3cu optical interfaces with end-to-end KP4 FEC for reaches up to 100m on multimode fiber or up to 2km on single mode fiber, and interfaces based on the popular 100G Lambda MSA for reaches up to 10km.
- Q: CAN OTHER COMPANIES JOIN THE 4x400G MSA?
- A: Yes. Interested parties are welcome to submit a request to join as a contributing member of this MSA.