21 May 2003 Camarillo, CA Lightwave -- Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. recently announced the immediate availability of its 10-Gigabit small form-factor pluggable (XFP) interface card that allows for easy migration from 300-pin optical transponder modules to the emerging XFP optical transceiver module standard.
The VSC8473XFP plugs into a standard 300-pin connector and provides the electronics necessary to emulate a 300-pin MSA Transponder. Vitesse has designed the card to be a stand-alone product containing five critical design elements: an industry standard XFP connector and cage; Vitesse's 10-Gbit/sec serial to 16-bit transceiver integrated circuit; a 300-pin MSA connector interface; a reference clock clean-up phase locked loop; and supporting electronic circuitry. OEMs can plug any XFP module into a cage to configure the interface card for their specific reach, power, or approved vendor source, say company representatives. The OEM-supplied XFP module provides the transmit and receive optical interface while the 300-pin MSA connector provides a standard SFI4.1 host board interface for parallel path transmission and connection to the transceiver integrated circuit.
The VSC8473XFP allows system houses to quickly integrate low cost XFP modules into their existing systems without consuming in-house design resources or redesigning and qualifying expensive host printed circuit boards. The VSC8473XFP can also be used to evaluate XFP modules from different vendors or for interoperability demonstrations between different XFP modules and Vitesse's 10-Gbit/sec transceiver integrated circuits. Vitesse has validated interoperability with leading XFP modules currently on the market.
"The industry is demanding smaller form factor, less expensive optical solutions for access, metro, and long reach applications, and Vitesse is delivering," contends Tony Conoscenti, director of product marketing for Vitesse's Transport Division. "Vitesse's VSC8473XFP interface card dramatically cuts the cost and complexity of transitioning to the new XFP optical module standard by combining a low power, configurable solution with no end customer design investment."
Incorporated into the VSC8473XFP is Vitesse's new 16-bit, 9.953-Gbit/sec to 11.3-Gbit/sec single chip transceiver. The device is a low power (1.1W typical), SONET/SDH-compliant, 16:1 serializer/deserializer manufactured in 0.13-micron CMOS process with integrated multiplexer, demultiplexer, CMU, CDR, and limiting amplifier. It operates over an extended temperature range of -5 ° C to +90 ° C. The VSC8473XFP is available now and is priced at $1,500 each in small quantities.