Infineon Intros 4-Gig FC Transceiver

MUNICH -- Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX), a leading fibre optic vendor, today announced a new 4 Gigabit Fibre Channel (4GFC) transceiver in a small form factor pluggable (SFP) module with digital diagnostics. These intelligent SFP (iSFP™) modules, using Infineon’s low cost 850nm and 1310nm VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) diodes, offer multi-rate capability to allow for use in both Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel (FC) applications.

Infineon's 4GFC solutions will be presented at ECOC 2003 in Rimini (September 22 - 24), in Hall A5 Booth # 464/465.

Infineon’s 4GFC modules offer rate-select auto-negotiation capability from 1x to 2x and 4x FC to ensure backward compatibility with existing Fibre-Channel-based equipment, providing system designers with an easy migration path to next generation standards for Storage Area Network (SAN) applications.

“As one of the first companies to offer 4GFC modules and the industry first to demonstrate a solution using 1310 nm VCSELs, Infineon underlines its leadership in technology and and cost-effective manufacturing of highly reliable Fibre Channel networking and backbone devices,” said Erwin Wolf, Vice President and General Manager of Infineon’s Fiber Optic Business Unit. “We are helping our customers to meet the increasing demand for SAN solutions, which according to recent reports from market research firm, iSuppli, is one of the fastest growing segments in the Fiber Optics market.”

The new high-speed modules provide multi-rate compliance and high EMI and jitter margins for applications like Fibre Channel Fabric and Director Switches, Host Bus Adaptors (HBA) and Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) systems. Fully compliant with the Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) multi-source agreement (MSA), the 4GFC iSFP modules provide an enhanced digital diagnostics monitoring interface, based on the SFF-8472 specification for real-time access to such operating parameters as laser bias current, transmitted optical power, received optical power, internal transceiver temperature and supply voltage. The iSFP modules also feature an advanced release mechanism for ease of pluggability.

Infineon is currently shipping sample quantities of the 850nm VCSEL-based modules with mass production expected by mid-year 2004 and 1310nm VCSEL-based transceiver samples scheduled for Spring 2004. The 4GFC modules are competitively priced and will soon be in the same range of today’s 2GFC modules.

Infineon Technologies AG