eTopus Technology Announces World's First 200G PAM4 PHY

SUNNYVALE, CA --(Marketwired - May 17, 2016) - eTopus Technology emerges from stealth as a new technology leader in Physical Layer transceivers (PHYs). eTopus announces ePHY™, the industry's first monolithic 200G PAM4 IC. ePHY is a family of PAM4 PHY solutions for 50/100/200/400G optical, DAC (Direct Attach Copper) cable and backplane interconnects used in hyperscale and enterprise data centers. ePHY solutions are based on an ADC/DSP receiver architecture, ePRT™ (eTopus Partial-Response Technology) and are the industry's first 50Gbps PAM4 physical layer products to exploit the benefits of Partial-Response signaling to deliver excellent performance at low-power consumption. ePHY integrates multiple 50Gbps PAM4 transmit and receive channels to scale across multiple data rates addressing 50/100/200/400 GbE product requirements.

Enormous growth in machine and user generated Internet traffic (including Social Media, Web2.0 and IoT) increasingly drive the requirements for ever higher speed and greater bandwidth interconnects, particularly within hyperscale & enterprise data centers. The recent adoption of 4-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4) signaling by key standards bodies, including the IEEE (802.3) and the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), enable the industry to advance to next-generation Ethernet speeds effectively doubling the data rate over a given channel bandwidth compared to existing 2-level NRZ (Non-Return-to-Zero) signaling.

At the heart of ePHY is eTopus Technology's proprietary ePRT, a highly programmable and adaptive DSP (Digital Signal Processing) architecture that combines FFE (Feed Forward Equalization) and DFE (Decision Feedback Equalization) with Partial Response Signaling in the digital domain of the receiver to provide superior BER (Bit Error Rate) performance in both optical and high Insertion Loss copper channels compared to analog-based receivers. ePRT can also relax the front-end bandwidth requirements of optical transceivers. Additionally, ePHY's advanced transmitter architecture includes a 3-tap FIR for Transmit De-emphasis and a non-linear compensator to mitigate non-linear effects from optical components.

"We are excited to offer the industry ePHY, eTopus Technology's new family of 50, 100, 200 and 400G PAM4 PHY solutions, that align perfectly with the recent adoption of PAM4 signaling by the IEEE for next-generation Ethernet deployments," said Harry Chan, Founder and CEO. "The ePRT DSP architecture provides low power at high insertion loss enabling cost optimized solutions for hyperscale data centers establishing eTopus as a technology leader in physical layer devices. Moreover, ePRT is a future-proof architecture already supporting 100Gbps while enabling the transition to even higher speeds and more advanced modulation schemes."

Key Features:

• 4 Full-duplex channels supporting10-28Gbaud PAM4 / NRZ electrical interfaces

• Multi-rate support from 10Gbps to 56Gbps

• Family of PHYs for 50/100/200/400 Gbps interconnects over single-mode & multi-mode optics, DAC cables and copper backplanes

• ePRT™ advanced, highly configurable DSP-based receiver architecture enabling 35dB channel insertion loss performance

• 3-tap FIR for Transmit De-emphasis

• Transmit non-linear compensator to mitigate non-linear effects from optical components

• Full suite of diagnostics including multiple loopback modes, self test and on-chip PRBS and checker

• eZEYE™ receiver monitor provides mean squared error of link margin for performance analysis and stress testing

• eZLINK™ adaptive calibration engine that rapidly converges to the optimal performance under any channel condition

• Evaluation kit, complete with eval board, GUI, documentation and routines for data analytics

About eTopus Technology
eTopus is an innovator and technology leader of high performance, mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the enterprise network, data center and high-performance computing markets. eTopus Technology's advanced, DSP-based physical layer transceiver technology delivers excellent performance at low power consumption for next generation Ethernet deployments requiring multiple single-lane 50G and 100G connectivity employing NRZ and Higher Order Modulation (HOM), including PAM4. eTopus is a VC-backed startup headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Investors include SK Telecom, corporate VC firms and cross-border funds.