White paper drills down on 40-, 100-GbE parallel optics
Oct. 12, 2012
New white paper from CommScope.
A new industry white paper from CommScope is entitled Optical Fiber Array Connectivity Evolves to Support New Parallel Optic Applications Extending Method-B Advantages. The paper provides an overview of the three main optical array connectivity methods as defined in ANSI/TIA-568-C.
"New parallel optics applications are upon us," states the document's introduction. "The publication of the IEEE 802.3ba standard in the summer of 2010 defined 40 Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet on OM3 and OM4 cabling using parallel fibers. This standard defines one multimode interface for 40GE and three for 100GE."
The introduction continues, "The existing array connectivity methods in the ANSI/TIA-568-C structured cabling standard address the 40GE interface and two of the 100GE interfaces. The third 100GE interface, called option A, is being delivered to the market in two transceiver forms, the CFP and CXP. It differs from the other two in that it is the first application to define an interface that uses one 24-fiber MPO connection having two rows of twelve fibers in a single plug."
"The other two 100GE interfaces, called options B and C, use two individual 12-fiber MPO connections. The option-A interface requires a standardized addition of new equipment cords that interconnect the transceivers to existing standardized 12-fiber cabling infrastructures. Such equipment cords would provide one 24-fiber 2-row MPO plug on the equipment end and one 12-fiber 1-row plug on each of two cabling ends."
Much of the white paper's formed the content of CommScope's contribution to TIA TR-42.11, presented in September of 2010.
