San Francisco — At last year’s OFC 2024, the next speed of optical connections (1.6T) was all talk with one exception. In a back room, Keysight demonstrated a 1.6T optical link between an arbitrary waveform generator and a bit-error-rate tester. The demonstration was a transmission of raw, unstructured bits. One thing was clear, AI was…
OFC 2025: Interoperability demos
The Ethernet Alliance and Optical Internetworking Forum featured interoperability demonstrations at data rates up to 800 Gbps. San Francisco — With so many companies and products comprising the optical networking ecosystem, interoperability is paramount. All those semiconductors, optical modules, switches, routers, servers, test equipment, and the software that makes them function must first provide their…
DSL router uses parts from old phones
A consortium of companies found a clever way to recycle phone parts, showing how reusing electronics can improve sustainability. Electronic waste is a huge environmental problem of which disposed cell phones are a major contributor. Think about it, all that metal, plastic, and working semiconductors go into landfills. Some materials, such as gold from PCB…
Test Wi-Fi 6E and Ethernet with this handheld unit
Fluke Networks introduced the LinkIQ Duo Cable+WiFi+Network Tester, a handheld instrument that combines cabling qualification with Wi-Fi 6E network testing, eliminating the need for technicians to use multiple tools. The introduction of the LinkIQ Duo advanced Wi-Fi testing capabilities meets the challenges and requirements technicians face with the rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6E. LinkIQ Duo…
Why AI chips need PCIe 7.0 IP interconnects
Today’s SoC designers need to design PCIe 7.0 into new AI chip designs. First-pass silicon success is critical to meet the increasing performance and bandwidth demands of data-intensive applications. Data center technologies need to evolve to enable AI’s increasing workload and demands, especially as the number of parameters doubles every four to six months —…
Co-packaged optics: higher data rates increase reliability risks
EE World discussed with GlobalFoundries’ Anthony Yu trends and tradeoffs in co-packaged optics and silicon photonics resulting from the rising data demand that AI thrusts upon us. It’s coming down to speed versus reliability, at least for now.
Design kit aids in Ethernet data and power protection
Bourns released the POE-LAB1 Design Kit, which can help you when designing Power over Ethernet (PoE) into your products. The kit streamlines both the design of power/data delivery and protection. The kit includes components from the company’s line of semiconductor and magnetic products suited to support high-speed Ethernet lines, up to 10 Gb/sec, with PoE++…
10BASE-T1S brings a single pair of wires to the network edge
The 802.3cg Ethernet standard uses a single pair of wires, and it manages data flow without switches, making it suitable for industrial networks at a lower cost than traditional Ethernet. Industrial plants have long used digital data to monitor and control their production facilities. Networks in factories, data centers, and commercial buildings push the edges…
Ethernet turned 50 in 2023, what’s next?
EE World interviewed John D’Ambrosia, who told a few stories from earlier times and gave a peek at what’s coming next from the IEEE 802.3 set of standards.
How does 4D-PAM5 work in Gigabit Ethernet?
Networks using 10 GbE rely on more sophisticated modulation and coding techniques than networks needed at lower data rates. 4D-PAM5 (four-dimensional five-level pulse amplitude modulation) are the encoding and modulation techniques used in Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). 4D-PAM5 replaced the multilevel transmit MLT-3 encoding and modulation used for 100BASE-TX. IEEE 1000BASE-T (GbE) uses a combination of…