Aquantia already leads the industry in NBASE-T ethernet chip design experience, having deployed six generations of 10Gigabit and Multi-Gigabit BASE-T products across multiple process nodes. Over the past two years, Aquantia has leveraged this experience to develop the...
Industry first SFP+ line of products enabling connectivity for 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T networking released by Aquantia
Aug 25, 2016
New Multi-Gigabit Copper SFP+ modules provide a new dimension of flexibility for network and data center professionals looking to optimize equipment & reduce operating costs
Aquantia Corp., pioneer and market leader in high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for data centers and enterprise infrastructure, today announced the industry’s first copper SFP+ product family to offer 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T capabilities. The new Aquantia AQS series modules deliver the flexibility and port density well known to the SFP+ form-factor while utilizing the ubiquitous twisted-pair copper cabling for network connectivity. This power-optimized solution enables 10GBASE-T for lengths up to 30 meters and 100 meters at 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T.
Aquantia’s solution delivers an active rate-adaptation technology that allows users to connect seamlessly twisted-pair copper-based 2.5G and 5G modules into SFP+ existing slots that were previously considered to be 10G fiber optic only— at a cost that can be easily absorbed.
“Aquantia is committed to providing the broadest portfolio of high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions on the market. Our new SFP+ modules will allow data center and network managers to further leverage their installed base of switches and servers equipped with SFP+ empty cages and connect with the newest generations of 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T appliances,” said Kamal Dalmia, senior vice president sales, and marketing of Aquantia. “These enhancements enable our customers to migrate successfully to higher levels of bandwidth and superior all-around performance.”
Data center solutions drive down costs & complexity
In the data center market users typically deploy direct-attach cables for 10G servers to switch connections. Based on distance requirements, users must select either passive, active twinax or fiber optic connections, which are cost prohibitive. The new power-optimized twisted-pair copper solution allows the use of more powerful 10GBASE-T SFP+ to deliver the best combination of performance, reach, and cost for all applications up to 30 meters.
Enterprise networking solutions help customers innovate faster, simplify operations, & reduce risk
In enterprise configurations, switches are typically shipping with 1G ports and 10G fiber-optic uplink slots to connect multiple switches together. Now, these uplinks can be achieved at higher speeds using the same slots but with cost-effective copper cabling.
Consumer demand for high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming is expanding as fast as enterprise demand for cloud computing architectures. This increased usage places tremendous demand on data centers as well as enterprise IT departments. To meet this challenge, IT managers and data center providers will need to upgrade their current 1GbE capabilities to 2.5GbE, 5GbE and 10gbe.
“We estimate that there is currently an installed base of at least twelve million data center-class SFP+ empty cages available for future provisioning as networking traffic demand increases,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “Aquantia’s offering of the three speeds, 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T allows IT managers and data center providers to provision these empty slots with cost and power-efficient solutions based on the well-known and large base of twisted-pair copper cabling.”
Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON)
Aquantia’s technology is simple enough to be easily adapted to carrier markets, including the traditional Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) and similar configurations. As performance demands increase, the pressure to either improve an existing network or convert to a more expensive configuration, and perhaps take on additional conversion and encapsulation requirements, also increases. Aquantia’s solution satisfies these performance demands without significant additional cost or complexity.