Altera's Stratix IV GT FPGAs interoperate with 40G QSFP optical modules

APRIL 1, 2010 -- Altera Corp. announced the interoperability of its Stratix IV GT FPGAs with 40G Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP) optical modules from Avago Technologies. QSFP optical modules provide 40-Gbps data rates across a single link of fiber-optic cable.

Leveraging the 11.3-Gbps embedded transceivers featured in Stratix IV GT FPGAs, designers can now take advantage of the benefits of FPGAs to bridge 40G QSFP optical modules to other devices in their line cards and increase overall system bandwidth.

QSFP is a hot-pluggable interface for high-performance switches, routers, servers and host bus adapters used in computing and telecommunication applications. The compact, 4-high-speed-channel, Z-axis pluggable interface supports data rates up to 40 Gbps (4 lanes x 10 Gbps). The Stratix IV GT FPGA's 11.3-Gbps transceivers connect directly to the 40G QSFP optical module without the need of bridging chips.

Altera achieved interoperability with 40G QSFP optical modules by using a Stratix IV GT FPGA development board. The transmitter and receiver in the development board connected via SMA cables to two QSFP boards featuring 40G QSFP modules from Avago Technologies. The QSFP modules are connected by 30 meters of OM2 multimode optical fiber cable assembly. After more than 100 hours of operation, zero errors were observed, resulting in a bit error rate (BER) exceeding 10E-16.

Stratix IV GT FPGAs are currently shipping.