QLogic Picks Intel's XPAK

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- QLogic Corp. has chosen the Intel® TXN17209 Multi-Mode XPAK Optical Transceiver to provide 10 Gigabit per second (Gbps) connectivity for the QLogic SANbox 5200(1), the storage industry's first Fibre Channel stackable switch, which supports storage traffic at up to 10 Gbps.

Designed specifically for high-performance enterprise applications, the Intel TXN17209 optical transceiver uses multi-mode technology to deliver 10 Gbps Ethernet and 10 Gbps Fibre Channel transport for enterprise applications such as the QLogic SANbox 5200 at half of the cost, a third less power consumption and in one-third the size of earlier solutions.

The QLogic SANbox 5200 stackable switch is a 20-port Fibre Channel switch that features 16 ports running at 2 Gbps and four ports running at 10 Gbps in a slim 1U form factor. The four 10 Gbps ports use Intel TXN17209 optical transceivers to provide a high-speed uplink of aggregated 2 Gbps data streams. "Customers for our new stackable switches need a high-speed dedicated stack interconnect to eliminate the loss of user ports for interswitch links," said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing for QLogic Corporation. "The Intel TXN17209 optical transceiver provides a low power, low cost 10 Gigabit solution in a space-saving XPAK form factor that enabled us to pack more capacity into the SANbox 5200." Intel co-founded the XPAK multi-source agreement (MSA) to address the needs of short-reach 10 Gbps connectivity in cost-constrained enterprise applications. MSAs define electrical interfaces, physical characteristics, signaling schemes and other essential characteristics that enable companies to provide system OEMs with a reliable supply of interoperable products. The Intel TXN17209 XPAK Multi-mode XPAK Optical Transceiver offers single-side mounting, less than a four-square-inch footprint and only 3.5 Watts of power consumption, enabling high port density in switches and placement on PCI network interface cards (NICs). It is hot-pluggable and includes a digital management interface allowing for field configuration, easy setup and remote troubleshooting. With its industry-standard XAUI 4-bit parallel electrical interface, the transceiver connects directly to readily available Ethernet and Fibre Channel ICs.Intel Corp.QLogic Corp.