Tag Archives: 100G

Understand 100G Ethernet Standards

People want 100G Ethernet, meanwhile, they want to reduce the cost and increase the port density to the most. Driven by the combination of elements like that, 100G Ethernet standards and related optical transceivers have improved a lot in the past few years. As so many 100G Ethernet standards and package form factors are used, people might be confused by them easily. This post offers a detailed introduction about 100G Ethernet standards.

100G LR4 QSFP28

The first 100G Ethernet standard was approved in 2010. After that tremendous changes have happened in 100G technology in many aspects. The first generation of the 100G standards use the 10x10G lane in electrical signaling. For media signaling, some use 10x10G and some use 4x10G. The second generation 100G Ethernet standards apply 4x10G signaling for both electrical and media. In terms of transmission distances, different standards can support different transmission distance. Now there are more choices for transmission distances ranging from 1 meter to 40 kilometers. Meanwhile, the package form factors also changed a lot. The first 100G transceivers CFP is much larger than that of the new one QSFP28. To offer an intuitive way to illustrate these 100G Ethernet standards, I will list them in the following table.

Name Distance Media Type Module Type Media Signaling Electrical Signaling Standard
100GBASE-KP4 1m Backplane Backplane 4×25 4×25 June 2014
IEEE 802.3bj
100GBASE-KR4 1m Backplane Backplane 4×25 4×25 June 2014
IEEE 802.3bj
100GBASE-CR4 5m Twinax
Copper
CFP2, CFP4
QSFP28
4×25 10×10 June 2014
IEEE 802.3bj
100GBASE-CR10 7m Twinax
Copper
CXP, CFP2
CFP4, QSFP28
10×10 4×25 June 2010
IEEE 802.3ba
100GBASE-SR4 OM3:
70m
OM4:
100m
Parallel
MMF
CFP2, CFP4
CPAK, QSFP28
4×25 10×10 March 2015
IEEE 802.3bm
100GBASE-SR10 OM3:
100m
OM4:
150m
Parallel
MMF
CFP, CFP2, CFP4
CPAK, CXP
10×10 10×10 June 2010
IEEE 802.3ba
10×10-2km 2km Duplex
SMF
CFP 10×10 10×10 March 2011
10×10 MSA
10×10-10km 10km Duplex
SMF
CFP 10×10 10×10 August 2011
10×10 MSA
100GBASE-LR4 10km Duplex
SMF
CFP, CFP2, CFP4
CPAK, QSFP28
4×25 10×10 June 2010
IEEE 802.3ba
10×10-40km 40km Duplex
SMF
CFP 10×10 10×10 August 2011
10×10 MSA
100GBASE-ER4 40km Duplex
SMF
CFP, CFP2 4×25 10×10 June 2010
IEEE 802.3ba

The above table contains the 100G standards that published by IEEE and MSA, which are listed by the transmission distance from the top to the bottom. According to reports from many marketing reports, 100G optical component market will surge in 2016. FS.COM provide 100G solutions including transceivers, patch cable, cable management products, etc. Kindly contact sales@fs.com or visit FS.COM for more details about 100G Ethernet and products, if you are interested.

Related Article: 100G Ethernet Is Gaining Broader Market