Enterprise Solutions Development of LEAPWIRE™/ DUALINE™ series for 112 Gbps PAM4, and Board-to-Board for 112 Gbps PAM4

We will be exhibiting at DesignCon 2022 in Santa Clara, California on April 5-7, 2022.

In recent years, infrastructure telecommunication, such as servers and switches, have become increasingly faster in the enterprise market. The challenge is that conventional PCB trace transmission have large insertion losses with limited transmission distance. 

A co-package system also faces the challenge of high-density packaging. I-PEX has begun development of our new LEAPWIRE™/DUALINE™ series 112 Gbps PAM4 using high-speed twinax cables and 112G PAM4 board-to-board connection to solve these problems. These products will be used for transmission between chips inside equipment and connection to I/O connectors.

The problem is that the existing board transmission pattern (shown in Fig. 1) has high insertion loss in the PCB trace transmission. Also, because of the large connector size of the general jumper harness, the connector is placed far from the heat sink, and the I/O connector is connected through the board, resulting in a large transmission loss (shown in Fig. 2). In our proposed design (shown in Fig. 3), the connector height has a low profile, allowing for placement under the heat sink, putting it closer to the ASIC. Direct connection to I/O connectors is now possible, which helps reduce transmission loss. The small size of the connector also supports airflow measures.

I-PEX LEAPWIRE™ (Twinax cable) can transmit approximately 10.3 times farther in the 28 GHz band than PCB transmission.

Co-packaging is intended to address the challenges of bandwidth and power consumption. It is an advanced mixed-mounting technology that combines electronic components with an IC on a single substrate package. In the next step, it is envisioned that optics and electronic switching will be combined on a single substrate package. Reducing power consumption and thermal effects while reducing the footprint using this technology has become a challenge for the efficient support of high-speed networks.

The system also allows the package itself to be replaced in the event of a failure, providing greater design flexibility. As previously mentioned, faster and more efficient transmission and higher density packaging are challenges. Smaller connectors and jumper solutions, which are capable of high-speed transmission, are needed.