May 30, 2012

Single-Chip Solution Assists In CFP2 Transition

Initial shipments of the Xilinx Inc. Virtex-7 H580T FPGA, which it says is the world’s first 3D heterogeneous all-programmable product, have begun. Key customers are the first to have access.

Virtex-7 HT devices use Xilinx’s stacked silicon interconnect (SSI) technology, and they feature as many as 16 28 Gbps and 72 13.1 Gbps transceivers, “making them the only single-chip solutions for addressing key Nx100G and 400G line-card applications and functions,” Xilinx says.

Combined with Xilinx’s 100G gearbox, Ethernet MAC, OTN and Interlaken IP, Virtex-7 HT devices help customers transition to CFP2 optical modules. “Driven by the migration to CFP2 and, in the future, CFP4 optical modules, Virtex-7 HT devices enable unprecedented integration capability for communication equipment vendors designing Nx100G and 400G line cards,” Xilinx adds.

“With eight 28 Gbps transceivers and ample logic capacity, the Virtex-7 H580T device is the only FPGA that can integrate additional line card functionality so that designers can implement a dual 100G OTN transponder on a single chip,” explains Mark Gustlin, system architect/Wired Communications at Xilinx. “Competing ASSP-based solutions will comprise five devices, will remain unavailable for more than a year, will consume at least 40-percent additional power and will cost 50-percent more.”