Date: 18/02/2009

Multi-channel transceiver for high-speed blade server performance

Fujitsu has developed multiple-channel high-speed transceiver circuit that enables high-speed transmission at 10Gbps when used in back-planes, which are circuit boards that act as transmission conduits of blade servers, which are high-performance servers that combine several servers.
Compared to conventional technology, this novel backplane transceiver circuit would require only one-fourth (1/4) the power consumption and just half the area, to act as transmission conduits to enable 4-channel 10Gbps transmission in back-planes.
Blade servers - in which the basic components of a server, such as the CPU and memory, are mounted on a bare circuit board in server blades and then installed into a server system comprised of multiple server blades - have become a popular way to design IT systems to reduce space requirements and enable efficiencies in operations. In order for blade servers to achieve superior performance, technologies to enable the backplane - which is a communications circuit board connecting multiple server blades - to achieve high-speed transmissions of 10Gbps, and technologies to accelerate those transmissions through multiple channels are being developed.

In order to employ high-speed transceiver circuits that handle 10Gbps transmissions on the backplane, key issues that must be overcome include compensating for transmission losses that occur in the backplane, and reduction of noise attributable to crosstalk and reflections. With conventional high-speed transceiver circuits that compensate for transmission losses without amplifying noise, the use of multi-stage equalizer circuits was required to achieve sufficient compensation for transmission, thus increasing both required power and area. Thus, it had been difficult to realize high-speed multi-channel transceiver circuits that enable server systems featuring high performance, energy efficiency, and high densities.

The new receiver equalizer control method minimizes signal distortion resulting from transmission losses, and has built it into the receiver equalizer circuit. This receiver equalizer circuit supports 10Gbps transmissions over multiple channels and obviates the need for multi-stage equalizer circuits, resulting in numerous benefits: faster speed, lower power consumption, the ability to provide the loss-compensation necessary for backplane transmissions, and noise reduction.

By employing this new technology and 90nm CMOS technology, Fujitsu developed the 4-channel high-speed transceiver circuit capable of achieving 10Gbps backplane transmission speeds. As a result of these new technologies, there is sufficient space for the transceiver circuit to have multiple channels, thus enabling the implementation of 4 channels and thereby quadrupling the performance. Because backplane transmissions of 10Gbps can be achieved on multiple channels, effective transmission speeds in excess of 10Gbps are enabled.

For more details visit the website: www.fujitsu.com