SerDes Transceiver Complies With 6 Gb OIF Spec

Claiming an industry first, the PM8359 QuadPHY 6G SerDes transceiver is compliant with the Optical Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) 6 Gb/s long-reach specification for networking backplanes. Complimenting the transceiver, the QuadPHY 6G evaluation platform debuts as a means to develop and test these next-generation backplane designs. The transceiver multiplexes and de-multiplexes eight 3.125 Gb/s serial links into four 6.25 Gb/s serial links. A proprietary adaptive decision feedback equalization (DFE) design is said to yield a bit error rate as low as 10E-18. Supported by Molex’s Reference Backplane Demonstrator, the QuadPHY 6G evaluation platform addresses a number of network applications. These include 3.125-Gb/s, XAUI-multiplexing Ethernet switches, as well as Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SATA, and SAS storage, and more. Samples of the QuadPHY 6G transceiver are available for $250 each and the QuadPHY 6G evaluation kit is priced at $4,900. PMC-SIERRA INC., Santa Clara, CA. (408) 239-8000.