SOLARFLARE COMMUNICATIONS POINTS THE WAY TO 10 GIG ETHERNET OVER STRUCTURED COPPER CABLING
Technical Details Shared On Enabling Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cabling
To Run Ethernet At 10 Gigabit Per Second
Irvine, CA, November 13, 2002 - SolarFlare Communications, Inc, a leading developer of high-performance semiconductors for physical layer connectivity, has delivered a tutorial on how to build a 10Gb/s Ethernet UTP transceiver for installed cabling. The presentation, given this week to an audience of industry leaders at the IEEE 802 plenary session in Kauai, centered on the challenges and the solutions for achieving full 10Gb/s performance over legacy UTP cabling, such as CAT-5e wiring used by existing 1000BASE-T systems.
Industry experts agree the development of 10Gb/s Ethernet for installed structured wiring will accelerate the migration of existing networks to next generation Ethernet. The IEEE most recently finished its work on a 10 Gb/s Ethernet standard addressing fiber-optic media, 802.3ae(tm). A groundswell of interest by systems vendors and users for a copper solution has resulted in a Call For Interest at the November plenary, with the intent to create a standard for 10GE over copper media.
Dr. George Zimmerman, SolarFlare’s CTO, led the tutorial with a thorough review of the behavior of UTP cabling and the limits of data rate capacity in this medium, and the proposed solutions to creating a working architecture. Dr. Bill Jones, SolarFlare’s director of systems engineering, showed how the solution could be achieved economically within the constraints of CMOS technology and processing power similar to today’s quad-1000BASE-T devices.
“This is the first time all impairments limiting speed and distance on structured copper wiring have been addressed collectively with the objective of proving that practical transceivers can be built using today’s readily available technologies,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “Many in the industry didn’t think it was possible, or practical, but after extensive measurements of the actual cable responses and detailed system design work, we’ve established that the problem can be solved. We’re here to move the industry forward on creating a standard that addresses this need.”
SolarFlare Communications, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company dedicated to becoming the leading provider of innovative solutions to increase the capacity limits of communications channels. SolarFlare’s products redefine the speed and distance capabilities of installed infrastructure as well as new types of low-cost physical media allowing existing networks to migrate to higher speeds economically and making possible significant new markets.
Ahmet Tuncay
SolarFlare Communications,
Inc.
1-949-581-6830 ext. 2100
SolarFlare
Communications is a trademark of SolarFlare Communications, Inc. All other trademarks and company names are
the property of their respective owners.