Tag Archives: 100G transceiver

40G Transceiver vs 100G Transceiver: Which One Is Worth the Investment?

Today, the trend for high-speed data transmission and high-bandwidth is overwhelming. Some years ago, people had witnessed upgrading from 10Mbps Ethernet to 100Mbps Ethernet. And the migration from 1G to 10G was happened not very long ago. But now, whether you believe it or not, prepared or not prepared, 40G and 100G have already on the way. Meanwhile, 40G transceiver and 100G transceiver are widely deployed among data center managers and IT engineers. 40G transceiver vs 100G transceiver, which one is worth the investment.

The Rise of 100G

To begin with, it has to be made clear that the market trend is 100G Ethernet, which will eventually become the mainstream in the future. The strong demand in 100G Ethernet is being driven by cloud services and hyper-scale data centers. And there is a demand for lower-priced 100G pluggable transceivers from data center customers. Currently, the market transition to 100GE is in full swing, fueled primarily by the seemingly insatiable need for networking bandwidth by hyper-scale data centers and cloud services. As it has been shown in the picture below, 100G Ethernet transceivers will exceed 15 million units a year.

100G market

This tremendous growth in deployments by a small number of key customers, together with a large number of suppliers competing for these orders, will undoubtedly drive down the cost of 100GE modules rapidly. It is predicted that the cost of 100G optical transceiver is expected to decline by 75% in the next couple of years. In the meantime, Facebook has publicly set a target cost of $100 for a 100G transceiver with a reach of less than 2km. While the Facebook target appears to be years away, we believe that a 70% cost reduction in 2 years is possible. By that time, the 100G transceiver will be more affordable.

Why not 40G?

If you ask me why 40G Ethernet will be obsolete? The short answer is “cost”. From the technical point, The primary issue lies in the fact that 40G Ethernet uses 4x10G signalling lanes. On UTP, 40G uses 4 pairs at 10G each. Early versions of the 40G standard used 4 pairs, but rapid advances in manufacturing developed a 4x10G WDM on a single fiber optic pair. Each 40G SFP module contains a silicon chip that performs multiplexing so that the switch see 40 gigabits in and 40 gigabits out. It’s similar to Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing when using fiber. When you buy a 40G cable or QSFP, you are paying for the cost of the chip and software, plus the lasers, etc. When using 25/50/100G, the “lane speed” is increased to 25 gigabits per second. For 100G Ethernet, there are four 25G signalling lanes. It’s cheaper to buy 100G with four lanes rather than 40G with a four-lane MUX.

40GEthernet

Scale up to 100G with FS 100G Optics Solution

As one of the leading providers in optical communication , FS provides customers with 100G optics that are manufactured at the highest quality of standards in the industry, including QSFP28, CFP, CFP2, CFP4, 100G patch panels, 100G switches, etc. Part of the products are listed as follow:

Model ID Description    Price

48862

Juniper JNP-QSFP-100G-SR4 Compatible 100GBASE-SR4 850nm 100m Transceiver

   US$  269

48354

Cisco Compatible QSFP28 100GBASE-SR4 850nm 100m Transceiver

   US$  269

65228

Juniper Networks CFP-100GBASE-SR10 Compatible 100GBASE-SR10 850nm 150m Transceiver

   US$  1,500

Summary
100G Ethernet are racing to market and will finally takeover the 40G market. FS provides both 40G transceiver and 100G transceiver for your network deployment. They are compatible with major brands, like Cisco, Brocade, Juniper, Dell, Arista, etc. If you had any inquiry, you can kindly visit www.fs.com.

Related Article: Preparation for 40G/100G Migration

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