The XENPAK MSA was publicly announced on March 12, 2001 and the first revision of the document was publicly released on May 7, 2001. The most recent revision of the MSA, Issue 3.0, was published on September 18, 2002. The result covered all physical media dependent (PMD) types defined by the IEEE at that time for 802.3ae 10GbE.
Although the XENPAK agreement received early support, its modules were thought to be overly large for high density applications. As of 2010, vendors generally changed to use XFP modules for longer distances, and Enhanced small form-factor pluggable transceivers, known as SFP+ modules, for higher densities. The newer modules have a purely serial interface, compared to the four "lane" XAUI interface used in XENPAK.
August 15, 2011