London: Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) have approved a Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) Framer Interface Level 5 SFI-5) Implementation Agreement (IA).
The deal paves the way for system suppliers to mix and match devices in equipment they are developing for 40Gb/s systems.
A number of companies have already developed equipment based on the SFI-5 specification, assuming that the Forum would vote in favour. And test equipment companies such as Agilent are already selling gear for evaluating equipment with SFI-5 interfaces.
Created by the OIF's Physical & Link Layer Working Group, the SFI-5 IA is an integral part of a series of agreements addressing the interfaces for packet and cell transfer in 40Gb/s applications like OC-768 ATM and Packet-over-SONET/SDH (POS).
The SFI-5 interface allows manufacturers of high speed SerDes devices and Optical Modules to develop components with the certainty that complementary products from FEC and Framer suppliers will be interoperable.
In this sense, the OIF vote is a significant breakthrough towards 40Gb/s systems, even though the market for these could still be some years away.
"SFI-5 and other high performance component and interface specifications enable suppliers to develop interoperable components for 40Gb/s systems," said Mike Lerer, chairman of the OIF's Physical & Link Layer Working Group and technology facilitator at Avici Systems.
SFI-5 specifies an interface between the SerDes component, the forward-error-correction (FEC) processor and Framer devices within the Physical Layer. SFI-5 addresses aggregate data bandwidths of OC-768, STM256, OTN OTU-3, as well as other applications at the 40Gb/s data rate.
System applications of SFI-5 include the interface between optical transponders and framers and transponders and FEC components.
** Separately, Maynard, MA-based PhotonEx has announced that Deutsche Telekom has completed a successful R&D field trial using the equipment suppliers production-grade optical transport system designed for long-haul, and ultra long-haul applications.
The unrepeatered transmission span supported numerous client interfaces using 40Gb/s wavelengths over G.562/SMF grade fiber.
The test was done using PhotonEx's PX Ultra 4T hardware and IntelliCore system software in a trial deployment on the roue between Nurnberg and Stuttgart.
