EMCORE Announces Demo of 40 Gb/s Connects Cables

EMCORE today announced sampling and demo of 40 gigabit per second (Gb/s) fiber-optic transceiver-based cables that will be showcased with Mellanox's switches and adapters at the International Supercomputing Conference. EMCORE Connects Cables, formerly Intel Connects Cables and recently acquired from Intel Corporation, are specifically designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and other large data center applications. The 40 Gb/s QSFP form factor cables are currently sampling and will be commercially available beginning 2009 to support the deployment of large Petaflop scale HPC clusters. EMCORE is currently offering 20 Gb/s cables with transmission distances of up to 30 meters. This new line of 40 Gb/s products offer faster links and longer transmission, lighter in weight, and more reliable in performance than the traditional copper cable interconnects:
  • Longer in Distance: 1 to 100 meter lengths for large Teraflop and Petaflop size clusters.
  • Faster in Speed: The QDR (quad data rate) cables offer 40 Gb/s transmission data rate. Together with the 10 and 20 Gb/s cables already commercially available EMCORE Connects Cables expands our product portfolio.
  • Lighter in Weight: At 84% lighter and 83% smaller than 24 AWG copper interconnects, EMCORE Connects Cables improve airflow and system cooling while reducing system installation and maintenance costs.
  • Reliable in Performance: With extremely low bit error rates (BER) of 10-15, EMCORE Connects Cables mean less dropped packets, dead links and longer up times on clusters.

"EMCORE Connects Cables continue to lead the HPC optical fiber interconnect market segment with the sampling of these ultra-high bandwidth cables," said Stephen Krasulick, Vice President and General Manager of EMCORE Digital Products. "We have worked with Mellanox Technologies closely on the testing of these products and are extremely pleased to be able to publicly demonstrate their capabilities with the new 40 Gb/s Mellanox ConnectX adapters. EMCORE foresees a rapid growth of the optical fiber interconnect market with the adoption of 40 Gb/s data rates and the move to huge Petascale systems." "We are excited to see EMCORE showcase their 40 Gb/s InfiniBand cables," said Thad Omura, Vice-President of Product Marketing at Mellanox. "Cables like these from EMCORE expand the reach of our ConnectX adapters and systems based on the InfiniScale IV 40Gb/s InfiniBand switch silicon, and will make it easier to build large clusters that support state-of-the-art commercial and scientific HPC applications." Since the introduction by Intel at ISC in June of 2007, EMCORE Connects Cables have been enthusiastically embraced by the HPC community throughout the world, most notably in the 120 Teraflop Tata-Computational Research Labs, Pune, India. This product was recognized as #4 on the November 2007's Top500 list. EMCORE Connects Cables are respected for their performance, high-quality of manufacture, and excellent reliability. After closing the transaction in April of 2008, EMCORE has stressed the same commitment to performance, manufacturing quality, and customer satisfaction. A live demonstration of these cables and the Mellanox Technologies ConnectX adapters can be seen in the Intel booth at the International Supercomputing Conference, Dresden, Germany - June 17-19, 2008. For more information, visit EMCORE at its Web site.