These XGP member companies include; Blaze Network Products, E2O Communications, Finisar Corporation, Sigma-Links (a joint venture of Fujikura and OKI), Hitachi Cable, Ignis Optics, Infineon Technologies, Intel, Light Logic, Molex Incorporated, Optical Communication Products, Inc. (OCP), Picolight, Pine Photonics, Samsung and Tyco Electronics. You’ll find most of these members companies exhibiting at the NetWorld + Interop 2001 conference May 8 – 10 in Las Vegas,NV.
Members of the XGP group will independently develop 10-gigabit transceivers based on this Multiple Source Agreement (MSA). The XGP group will leverage off much of the work that was done by last year’s small form pluggable MSA to ensure a quick market-ready design. For information on specific product development, pricing and availability, contact the individual companies aforementioned.
The XGP covers five 10-gigabit transceiver types, including 850 nanometers (nm) serial, 850nm coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM), 1310nm serial, 1310nm CWDM and 1550nm serial. The companies intend to work on a common design interface for multiple protocols in 10-gigabit networking and storage applications. The Z-axis pluggable XGP is targeting a size that is approximately the same as the standard GBIC to maximize the potential for system designers to pack more ports on a line card.
The intent of the XGP group is to bring to market a 10-gigabit pluggable solution that provides maximum port density and configuration flexibility for system designers. Recent pluggable options being announced to the market are much larger and therefore limit the number of ports that can be implemented within a networking piece of gear. We aren’t just looking at the early adopters but the market as a whole, as equipment requirements for 10 gigabit start to mimic the route that gigabit board designs took over the past few years, said Bill Wiedemann, chairman of the XGP MSA.
Fiber-optic system designers using the XGP transceivers can take advantage of postponement manufacturing, configuring the host just prior to shipment, allowing flexibility and just-in-time cost and inventory advantages. This effort is intended to establish a common design among several manufacturers, giving the designer multiple sources of suppliers for 10-gigabit transceivers.
The components of the MSA include the front-panel mounted transceiver, the card edge mating connector, the electrical pin-outs and mechanical dimensioning to make the overall solution available from multiple sources. The XGP group is cooperatively targeting a finished design by June of 2001 and expects to be shipping products before the end of 2001. For further information about XGP, please refer to the web site at www.xgpmsa.org.
