* With IEEE's technical work recently completed, AMCC releases 10GBase-LRM chip
Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) this week started shipping a physical-layer integrated circuit for 10GBase-LRM.
The company’s QT2025 supports the 10GBase-LRM specification, or IEEE 802.3aq. You may recall that last month I noted that the task force working on the standard had essentially completed its technical work.
The new specification allows 10 Gigabit Ethernet to run on the “FDDI-grade” multimode fiber-optic lines installed in many companies’ buildings. A lot of these companies may find themselves with an excuse to upgrade from 100Mbps backbones to 10Gbps.
AMCC says that more than 90% of the fiber installed in enterprise backbones is this legacy multimode fiber.
On the new integrated circuit, AMCC says its capability exceeds the 220 meters specified in the IEEE document, and can send signals as far as 300 meters.
AMCC introduced another physical-layer integrated circuit last month, which was designed for the market for small form factor SFP+ modules running 10 Gigabit Ethernet. AMCC says that enterprise switches and network interface cards will eventually use that standard because of its low cost and low power consumption. The new device, in the meantime, is aimed at equipment using the larger XENPAK, XPAK and X2 modules, the company says.
AMCC bought Quake Technologies for $69 million last month, and the new chip is really coming out of the Quake group (hence, presumably, the “QT” in the chip’s model number). AMCC bought Quake to reach the enterprise switching market, and this latest announcement is coming from the push into that market.
