Quake, Greenfield partner on metro Ethernet reference design

March 6, 2006 Santa Clara, CA -- Quake Technologies, a supplier of 10-Gbit/sec Ethernet physical layer ICs, has introduced a Metro Ethernet reference design in partnership with Greenfield Networks, a provider of high-performance silicon for Ethernet switching platforms.

The companies say the reference design consists of 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports and two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Quake's QT2032 device provides physical layer functionality for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Quake chip communicates with the Greenfield Networks Packetry II chipset via XAUI, an IEEE Std. 802.3ae interface, and with the XFP optical modules via XFI, a 10 Gbit/sec serial interface.

"We were very careful in choosing a partner for the 10G physical layer," explains Kamran Torabi, vice president of engineering and co-founder of Greenfield Networks. "We selected Quake's QT2032 for its robust solution, proven performance, and low risk for fast time to market. Quake Technologies is the 10GE PHY market leader and understands what it takes to make 10G Ethernet work on a system card."

The QT2032 is Quake Technologies' third generation XFI-to-XAUI PHY IC for 10 Gigabit Ethernet. According to the company, with its extensive feature set, the QT2032 enables Ethernet traffic over LAN networks as well as SONET/SDH and WDM WAN networks. The company says the QT2032's unique combination of low power dissipation, a single 1.2 V supply, and selectable LAN/WAN operation makes it ideal for use in high-density system cards.

Greenfield's Packetry II Metro Ethernet product family offers a combination of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, integrated traffic management capabilities, and advanced metro features, such as scalable tables and buffering, IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, VPLS, QinQ, MAC-in-MAC and hierarchical QoS, traffic policing and shaping. The company says the purpose-built devices deliver carrier-grade capabilities and enable service providers to introduce new Metro Ethernet services over IP/MPLS-based networks.

"We are very pleased to work with Greenfield in offering our mutual customers a complete system solution for Metro Ethernet," concludes Mitch Kahn, VP of marketing at Quake Technologies. "Together we can accelerate 10G Ethernet deployment in metro applications."

The Greenfield GH8000 reference design is now shipping. The reference design and the QT2032 can be viewed in Quake booth #2755 at this week's OFC/NFOEC exhibition in Anaheim, California.