MultiLane, Inc. verified that Infinium Quantum™ provides superior optical performance with the highest headroom
Is “Good” Really “Good Enough”?
Infinium Quantum Proves “Best” is “Best”
June 23, 2021
Moving into higher bandwidths and speeds, specifically focused on meeting escalating data center requirements, are forcing network designers to take a closer look at their fiber optic systems. So, how can they guarantee their network performance is better than just “good enough” when “good” actually needs to be “best.”
Meeting industry standards, such as TIA and IEEE, is good, but surpassing them is better. Standards provide the minimum requirements for system performance based on link loss budgets. Traditionally, a key link performance metric for fiber systems is insertion loss (IL) and its impact on the system power budget and the bit-error rate (BER) of the link. Link loss parameters are provided by IEEE and are specific to the system’s bandwidth and speed. In data center applications, bandwidth capacity and speeds are quickly increasing from 40 Gb/s to 400 Gb/s transmission with 800 Gb/s on the foreseeable horizon.
With faster speeds and higher bandwidths, the total link loss tolerances are becoming tighter and the overall component losses are becoming smaller. In short, link losses defined by the standards are not good enough. To meet future requirements means specifying and installing system components that are designed to work together to exceed today’s standards. In doing so, fiber systems need to provide significant headroom, which means there is “room” to add applications without compromising the existing infrastructure, eliminating a costly “rip and replace.”
Last year Legrand introduced the Infinium Quantum™ to provide the industry with the lowest loss optical fiber cabling solution for high-speed and high-bandwidth, targeting advanced data center applications. Recently Infinium Quantum (IQ) was put to the test by MultiLane, Inc., a third-party provider of advanced data center interconnect test solutions. MultiLane verified that IQ provides superior optical performance with the highest headroom. As a result, MultiLane is calling this better-than-best solution, “The Quantum Effect.”
Taking Performance to a Higher Level
Legrand’s fiber offerings have redefined performance in the data center, delivering the most advanced network systems: Infinium™ Quantum, Ultra, and Core. While other fiber systems have stopped at Ultra Low Loss, Legrand forged forward to take fiber to a quantum level. The Infinium Quantum (IQ) fiber system offers the lowest total system loss on the market, opening the opportunity to challenge the limits previously impossible.
With a total channel attenuation of 0.75 dB the IQ Solution is ideal for AI, hyperscale, cloud, supercomputing and other high-bandwidth demand environments. The previous industry leading ultra-low loss solution offered a 1.7 dB total channel connection loss. With 0.75 dB total channel connection loss for both single mode and multimode, the IQ provides a 55% improvement over Ultra-Low loss. Key benefits for reduced errors are more headroom, lower latency and scalability. And futureproofing correlates to optimizing overall costs as it eliminates future infrastructure expenditures.
Putting Infinium Quantum to the Test
To prove IQ’s real-world performance, MultiLane conducted the physical layer experiment using their newest benchtop tester, ML4054, which is a fully featured 400G bit error rate tester (BERT). This tester includes multi-source adapters (MSA) for transceiver testing, which correlates to the system’s operations and reliability. In this specific set up a 400GBASE-DR4 transceiver link performance was measured with an “industry-standard” fiber connectivity solution and compared it to Legrand’s IQ solution.
The 400G transceiver was populated into a QSFP-DD host port within the MultiLane BERT. After connecting both the generic industry-standard single mode fiber assembly alongside the Legrand Quantum system through the MPO port of the transceiver, an optical attenuator and fiber loopback were connected at the remote end. These emulated real-life impairments like span loss, transceiver degradation, contaminated end faces and fiber bends, which are typically found in a data center environment. When the fiber traffic was measured and compared, Quantum demonstrated a 1 dB improvement in link loss which resulted in a significant BER improvement and reduction in Forward Error Correction (FEC). FEC is an error correction technique to detect and correct a limited number of errors in transmitted data without the need for retransmission. An advantage is that FEC saves bandwidth in retransmission.
In short, this very intricate test procedure proved IQ’s superior performance and reliability. The clear-cut results have shown in a drastic decrease in troubleshooting calls as a result of the system’s substantiated lower loss capabilities.
The Quantum Effect
It’s now been proven that the IQ performs leaps and bounds over typical standards- compliant fiber systems. While 800G transceivers are still in the development stage, it won’t be long until data centers will be deploying them. As system integrators are looking at solutions with the lowest link loss and highest throughput capabilities, they will be taking a closer look at the Infinium Quantum.
The Quantum Effect is guaranteed performance now and for upcoming generations of optoelectronic technologies. The result is peace of mind to the integrators and end users knowing that they’ve installed the “best of the best.”