In this big data age featuring high data transmission speed and great capacity, opticalcomponent transmission technology has experienced a crustal movement with each day passing by. The continuous demands of high-definition images, various voice and massive data transmission services, and many Internet and intelligent terminals application, have driven the bandwidth usage to a soaring point. With the advancements in fiber optics technology to meet the demanding bandwidth speeds, active optical cables (AOCs) have emerged. As copper connectivity faces some limitations such as low bandwidth, AOCs have been preferred to accelerate data connectivity for storage, networking, and high-performance computer (HPC) applications.

You may feel at a loss about what is AOC? Why should focus on this product? Here, let’s start with its definition.

An AOC is a wiring technology which accepts the same electrical inputs as a conventional copper cable, but makes use of optical fiber between the connectors. In order to improve the cable’s distance and speed performance without sacrificing its compatibility with standard electrical interfaces, the AOC uses electrical to optical conversion on the cable ends. More specifically, AOC is basically to convert electrical signal into optical signal at Tx, then transfer signal through anti-electromagnetic fiber optics intermediate, and vice versa at Rx, so that high-speed optical signal can flow smoothly in both ends. Its smart integration of optical and electrical interfaces thanks to the packaging design has expanded its applications from high performance computers to traditional data centers with the support of many protocols. (Active optical cables are reliant on protocol named InfiniBand.). Image below shows the AOC structure.

Key advantages of AOCs include: low weight for high port count architectures; small bend radius for easy installations; and low power consumption enabling a greener environment thereby providing the lowest total cost solution for data centers. At present, AOC is widely used in many fields, such as short-range multi-lane data communication and interconnect applications, to promote the traditional data center to step into optical interconnection.

Being one of the fastest growing technologies in the data center space, AOC has much to offer. It supplies higher bandwidth and a longer reach with a better footprint than current copper cables. When compared to the incumbent copper cables in most cases, active optical cables provide lighter weight, a smaller size, EMI immunity, a lower interconnection loss, and reduced power requirements. It seems that this kind of cable has nothing to "complain about”, but AOC is such a smart inventor that distinguishes from their predecessors and makes them look obsolete.

In the telecommunication market, a wide range of AOCs have been released for different applications, like 40G QSFP+ to QSFP+ AOCs (QSFP cables). Besides, FOR 40GbE applications, there are also fan-out products with one QSFP+ module (ie. AFBR-79EQPZ) at one end of the AOC and several lesser data rate SFP+ modules (eg. SFP-10G-SR) at the other. These can be used to connect a switch port to multiple server ports.

In addition to 40Gbps, AOCs operating at 100Gbps have also been available in the market for several years. In 100GbE environment, CFP is used for longer distances—typically over 100 meters and up to 40km—while QSFP and CXP is used for shorter distances. And the current cabling application of 100G QSFP28 AOC is one QSFP28 to four SFP28 cables, something similar to that 40G QSFP+ AOC assembly. There seems to be few AOCs that have adopted CFP at the present time.

AOCs provide a direct electrical connection between corresponding cable ends by embedding optics and/or electronics within the connectors. Fiberstore AOCs are provided for HPC, storage and networking applications. Many AOC products are available, including 10G SFP+ AOCs, QSFP cables mentioned above, compatible with Generic, Cisco, Brocade and some other brands. Certainly, AOCs can also be customized to meet your length requirements. For more information, please visit Fiberstore.

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