Mindspeed Unveils Low-Power 28G CDR Devices to Support Multiple Standard Data Rates

Mindspeed Technologies (News - Alert), a supplier of semiconductor solutions, has designed the lowest-power clock and data recovery (CDR) devices, supporting 28 Gbps data rates and seamlessly catering to the small form factor interconnect requirements for high-density 100 Gigabit Ethernet, InfiniBand and optical transport systems.

The company claimed that its family of CDRs offers design flexibility and cost-reduction features in systems extending past its regular network infrastructure markets – including storage-area-networking (SAN). The CDR devices are equipped with Mindspeed’s AmplifEye signal conditioning technology, which allows manufacturers to use less expensive board materials and components but with increased design margins.

The devices can confer added benefits to service providers to attain the required port densities in order to withstand ever increasing Internet traffic and escalating online video content demand. The devices are also reference-free, so there is no need for reference crystal oscillators, which in turn brings down the number of components and cost required to implement a retiming function.

Molex (News - Alert) Incorporated, a provider of complete interconnect devices, supposedly used Mindspeed’s CDRs to demonstrate the industry’s first, fully retimed 100Gbps zQSFP+ Active Optical Cable, and was able to counter the power consumption and thermal constraints of a small modular form factor.

Adit Narasimha, director of new product development at Molex, commented, “In the drive to match 100Gbps port count density to current 10Gbps interconnect levels, system OEMs require small front panel pluggable modules, which will enable tenfold increase in front panel bandwidth density. This creates a challenge for interconnect manufacturers to meet the power consumption and thermal constraints of QSFP modules. Molex’s silicon photonics-based zQSFP+ solutions in combination with Mindspeed’s low power CDRs are the first to demonstrate 100Gbps small form factor modules with retiming in both transmit and receive directions.”

Hasnain Bajwa, senior vice president and general manager of high-performance analog (HPA) at Mindspeed, exclaimed, “Our new CDRs expand Mindspeed’s product portfolio to address 100Gbps applications. We are excited to deliver industry leading low power solutions to help enable the next generation of networking infrastructure.”