Date: 09/03/2011

100 Gb Ethernet CMOS SerDes architecture from Inphi

Inphi has announced a new 100 GbE CMOS SerDes architecture, called iPHY designed for the development of next generation low power and high port density 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) solutions.

"Inphi continues to innovate. Our iPHY CMOS architecture is specifically designed to enable the development of next generation low power and small form factor 100 GbE transceivers," said Young Sohn, President and CEO, Inphi. "Together, working closely with leading OEMs and ecosystem partners, we candeliver more than 2X reduction in power and size, and 10X increase in port density for 100 GbE transceivers versus existing solutions based upon silicon-germanium technology. We believe this helps acceleratethe mass transition from 10 GbE to 100 GbE in data center and communications infrastructures."

Inphi brings out two critical steps on the path of moving the SerDes design from expensive Si-Ge to cheaper CMOS semiconductor process they are:
Migrate the 100 GbE transceiver's high-speed SerDes from its present implementation in exotic silicon-germanium (SiGe) technology to low power CMOS designs that can be economically fabricated using mainstream commercial CMOS processes.

Second, introduce innovative architectures that significantly reduce the power consumption and size of the transceivers.

The Inphi says its iPHY architecture is designed to address these steps and offer comprehensive solutionsfor physical layer integrated circuits (ICs) inside the transceiver module and on the line card to enable next generation 100 GbE systems to achieve more than 2X reduction in transceiver power consumption and 10X increase in port density.

Inphi is working closely with leading networking OEMs and ecosystem partners to develop the 100 GbE CMOS SerDes technology. In addition, Inphi has been actively driving the development of next generation low power and high port density100GbE standards at the IEEE and the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) meetings.

"The demand for network bandwidth is experiencing high growth, partially driven by the increase of mobile devices and wireless connectivity and users seeking faster access to high-performance applications, such as high-definition video and multimedia content," said Daryl Inniss, Ovum's Component VP and Practice Leader. "Ovum estimates demand for 100 GbE transceivers to grow at a high compounded annual growth rate of over 100% from 2010 to 2013, well above the industry average of 14%, because these transceivers are an emerging cost-effective solution supporting the bandwidth growth."

Inphi has also announced that its 2850TA dual-channel transimpedance amplifier (TIA) enables thedeployment of industry standard single wavelength 100G coherent transport systems.

"Designed to address increasing bandwidth demands, next generation coherent technology is the cornerstone of 100G optical networking. Inphi is excited to collaborate with several leading receiver manufacturers to be a part of this significant advancement in helping carriers migrate their backbone network from 10G to 100G for faster, 'always-on' Internetaccess," said Loi Nguyen, Vice President of Networking, Communications and Multi-Market Products at Inphi.

"Coherent detection is a breakthrough approach to achieve 100G networks and by jointly pioneering a next generation solution with Inphi we were able to make 100G a reality. This is a tremendous achievement and we are excited to be at the forefront of such technological advancements," said Andreas Umbach, Cofounder and CEO u²t Photonics AG.

"We are proud of the launch of our 100G coherent receiver. By integrating Inphi's next generation coherent TIA into our high-speed optical receivers we have enabled major tier one telecom OEMs to deploy 100G in the field," said Rob Risser, CFO of API, cofounder and General Manager of Picometrix Advanced Photonix company.