ClariPhy granted patents enabling standards-based testing of networking components

MARCH 30, 2010 -- ClariPhy Communications Inc., a fabless semiconductor company specializing in high-speed communications ICs, won two United States patents covering testing of key components in high-speed networking links.

The patents cover inventions using Waveform and Dispersion Penalty (WDP) and Transmitter Waveform and Dispersion Penalty (TWDP) performance metrics. This technology was first adopted in the IEEE 802.3 10 Gigabit (10G) Ethernet standard, applying to 10GBASE-LRM transmission on multimode fiber networks. Extensions of this technology were later widely adopted into several other standards, including SFF-8431 covering SFP+ modules, FC-PI-5 covering Fibre Channel serial links, and SAS-2 and SAS-2.1, covering Serial Attached SCSI physical interconnects. In addition, it is currently being considered by other standards bodies.

The inventions, covered by US patents 7,643,752 and 7,664,394, describe a method to test transmitters and a method to test intermediate components when the final receiver includes an equalizer. The methods distinguish between impairments that the equalizer can compensate and those that it cannot compensate.

In addition to the patents granted and pending, ClariPhy holds copyrights on the MATLAB code used to describe the underlying algorithm. ClariPhy has agreed to license the intellectual property required to practice various standards under a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis.