The Ethernet Alliance, the industry organization that promotes implementation of Ethernet technology, will further its educational mission June 14, 2011 with its latest Technology Exploration Forum (TEF). The subject of the forum, “Next Generation 100GbE Interconnect Specifications,” is particularly timely according to the John D’Ambrosia, chair of the Ethernet Alliance – as well as the leader of the IEEE’s 802.3ba standards effort that produced the 40- and 100-Gigabit Ethernet specifications.
D’Ambrosia says the program, which will be held at the Techmart Meeting Center in Santa Clara, CA from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM PDT, will focus more on discussion than on presentations. While he expects these discussions to help attendees better understand various aspects of 100GbE interconnect technology, he notes that past TEFs were catalysts for specification work.
The 100GbE TEF will include discussions of:
- The Channel for 100GbE
- Signaling and Encoding for 100GbE
- CEI Chip-to-Chip and Backplane Signaling Interfaces
- Energy Efficent Ethernet for 100-Gbps Backplane and Copper Systems
- Exploring Optical Technology for 100GbE
- The Future of 100GbE Single-Mode Optics
- The Next Generation of BASE-T
All but the CEI session will feature a panel of speakers. The Ethernet Alliance has posted a full agenda on its website.
From an optical perspective, the singlemode optics session promises to be among the liveliest, as the panel features members of the 10x10 MSA, who have struck out on their own to develop a 100GbE optical transceiver module that doesn’t conform to the 802.3ba specifications. D’Ambrosia noted that the IEEE intentionally chose not to cover the reach applications the 10x10 MSA module is designed to address. He expects there will be discussion of that decision as well as the wisdom of revisiting it during the session.
The Ethernet Alliance typically holds two TEFs a year, and the event June 14 is the first of 2011. D’Ambrosia says plans have not yet begun for a TEF this fall; that process will begin as soon as the 100GbE event concludes, he predicts.
Registration for the June 14 TEF is available online.