Today, bandwidth-intensive applications such as video rendering and high performance computing networks continue to drive the need for higher speed Input/Output (I/O) solutions. Organizations, such as IEEE 802.3 Working Group, and the SFF Committee, all have made contributions to developing pluggable I/O interfaces as the high speed I/O interconnects, such as SFP+ and QSFP+. This article gives detailed expression of these two pluggable modules: SFP+ and QSFP+.

The enhanced small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) is an enhanced version of the SFP. SFP+ extends the use of the SFP interconnect up to 10 Gb/s. Nowadays, SFP+ links are supplanting SFP links for both Ethernet and Fibre Channel. While the SFP+ system fits the same board space as SFP, SFP+ provides a 10x bandwidth improvement over SFP for Ethernet (10 Gb/s vs. 1 Gb/s) and 2x improvement for Fibre Channel (8.5 Gb/s vs. 4.25 Gb/s). The SFP+ system also offers capability to freely designate or configure any available system port with either copper- or fiber-based cabling as dictated by the specific installation environment.

The SFP+ port can accept either a passive copper cable solution for cable lengths of 5 to 7 meters, or an active copper cable solution for cable lengths up to 15 meters. Besides, SFP+ port can also operate over both single-mode fiber (SMF) and multi-mode fiber (MMF). The former is used in applications that need bandwidth to transfer data over long distances, while the latter allows each signal to travel through more than one pathway at one time for relatively shorter distances. Like Cisco SFP-10G-LR transceiver, Fiberstore compatible Cisco SFP-10G-LR supports link lengths of 10km over SMF at a wavelength of 1310nm.

The Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for data communications applications. QSFP+ port was developed to support even higher data rate up to 40Gb/s. The QSFP+ system uses a 4 x 10Gb/s link configuration for a 40Gb/s port. QSFP+ transceivers are designed to carry Serial Attached SCSI, 40G Ethernet, QDR (40G) and FDR (56G) Infiniband, and other communications standards. Compared with SFP+ module, QSFP modules increase the port-density by 3x-4x.

Similarly to SFP+ cable solutions, QSFP+ port also supports SMF, MMF, and copper cabling (both passive and active copper versions). But to make a mention, another cabling option that is available for QSFP+ connection is the active optical cable (AOC) assembly. In an AOC, the optical fiber is terminated directly to an optical transceiver that is sealed within the metal backshell on each end of the cable assembly. Take Cisco QSFP-H40G-AOC1M for example, this QSFP-H40G-AOC1M module runs over active optical cable for 40G links.

The use of these two pluggable I/O ports configurations gives system designers options to achieve even higher linear bandwidth density. Fiberstore offers a wide range of SFP+ and QSFP+ modules, including transceivers (eg. Cisco SFP-10G-LR) and cabling assemblies (QSFP-H40G-AOC1M mentioned above). You can visit Fiberstore for more information about SFP+ and QSFP+ modules.

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