10x10 MSA: Fast and efficient

The speed with which Google and its fellow MSA members moved from launching the effort to releasing specifications both established Google as a major market influencer and reinforced the “keep it simple and straightforward” message it had been preaching. The problem with 100GBase-LR4 devices, Google representatives had asserted during their trade show tour, was that they would be expensive and power hungry because of the use of 25-Gbps components; they also would take longer to develop and optimize than Google’s requirements would allow.

What the industry really needed, Google said, was an interface that would supply 10X the data rate of current 10-Gbps modules but at only 4X the cost and power dissipation. Thus, the 10x10 MSA developed specifications that called for a CFP form factor module that would transmit and receive 10 wavelengths of 10 Gbps over 2 km of singlemode fiber .The approach would leverage current 10-Gbps optical components and electronics – which obviously would result initially in 10X the cost and power dissipation of current 10-Gbps technology, but offered a better chance than 4x25-Gbps approaches of meeting the 4X cost/dissipation target in the near term, the MSA members claimed in a white paper. In fact, the MSA members have stated their approach will achieve such savings as soon as 2012. Meanwhile, they say 100GBase-LR4 technology will start at 100X the cost and 17X the power dissipation of SFP+ 10-Gbps transceivers, giving that approach a much longer road to travel.

Meanwhile, the MSA members have their eyes on the next generation of module as well. The 10x10 HD specifications would lead to an alternative to future 100GBase-LR4 CFP2 modules that the MSA says could be even cheaper than 10GBase-LR SFP+ modules by 2013.

September 24, 2011

Continue