National Semiconductor, Double the Signal Conditioning While Consuming Half the Power
Launch of New 10 Gbps Repeater Delivering Performance

Repeaters extend cable transmission distance and reduce interconnect costs for data center systems.

National Semiconductor Korea (CEO: Choi Chung-won), a leader in high-performance analog technology, today launched three new PowerWise® 10 Gbps multichannel repeaters that provide industry-leading equalization gain (36 dB), reduce power consumption by half (55 mW per channel), and extend cable reach by double (20 m of 24-AWG cable) compared to currently available solutions in the industry.

The newly introduced 10 Gbps repeater family is powered by National’s third-generation SiGe BiCMOS process and performs both receive equalization and transmit de-emphasis to compensate for channel loss in data centers and high-performance communication systems, thereby extending interconnect reach and increasing data bandwidth up to 10.3125 Gbps. Target applications include FR-4 backplanes and high-speed active cable assemblies using serial protocols such as 10 GbE, Fibre Channel, XAUI, CPRI, and Infiniband. The new repeaters also support SAS/SATA out-of-band (OOB) signaling for storage applications.

The demand for interface bandwidth in today's data center systems is increasing due to the explosion of multimedia content on the internet and the emergence of cloud computing and multi-core virtual servers, but difficulties have been presented in terms of power and signal integrity because interconnect lengths remain unchanged. However, by using National’s signal conditioners embedded within active coaxial cable assemblies and backplane boards, signal integrity can be guaranteed, and system power consumption and interconnect costs can be reduced compared to methods using optical materials.

Applying National 10 Gbps repeaters to active coaxial solutions enables doubling the reach and quadrupling power consumption compared to existing cable routing solutions through the use of a new SiGe BiCMOS process that produces high-bandwidth, low-noise transistors supporting low jitter and ultra-low power. The DS100BR410 is ideal for high-density connectors such as QSFP and CXP, whereas the DS100BR111 is designed for single-lane SFP+ connectors.

National's 10 Gbps Repeater Family

The DS100BR410 consists of four unidirectional channels, with a typical power consumption of 55 mW per channel and supports a single 2.5V supply voltage. It extends interconnect reach by compensating for channel loss through both receive equalization (up to 36 dB boost) and transmit de-emphasis (-9 dB) on each channel. Using this repeater significantly simplifies physical placement within the system.

The DS100BR210, consisting of two unidirectional channels, and the DS100BR111, consisting of bidirectional lanes (one transmit channel and one receive channel), have a power consumption of 65 mW per channel and support 3.3V and 2.5V supplies. Both products perform receive equalization with a maximum gain of 36 dB and transmit de-emphasis of -12 dB. All three types of repeaters can reduce power consumption of unused channels and apply signal conditioning via pin configuration or SMBus (I2C compliant).

Further details on National's 10 Gbps repeater product family can be found at http://www.national.com/datacom . A demo video of the active coaxial cable can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/ActiveCopper .

Price and commercial viability
The currently available DS100BR410 is supplied in a 7mm x 7mm, 48-pin lead-free LLP® package in units of 1,000.