Inphi Debuts 100G DWDM Solution for 80km Data Center Interconnects

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 22, 2016) - Inphi Corporation (NYSE: IPHI), a leading provider of high-speed connectivity solutions, today announced the release of its "ColorZ" reference design, the industry's first Silicon Photonics 100G PAM4 platform solution for 80km DWDM Data Center Interconnect (DCI) in QSFP28 form factor. Utilizing advanced Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4) signaling, ColorZ delivers up to 4Tb/s of bandwidth over a single fiber and allows multiple data centers located up to 80km of each other to be connected and act like a single data center. ColorZ provides the missing link that enables end-to-end 100G connectivity throughout the Cloud and helps realize Inphi's vision of "The Cloud is the Network™."

The growth of social networking, cloud computing, e-commerce and big data is driving bandwidth demand between data centers. This is motivating mega-cloud data center operators to deploy high-density, low latency and low power DWDM links to connect multiple data centers within a distance of 80km of each other. Today, however, a significant portion of these sub 80km links are still relying on 10G DWDM due to the lack of availability of 100G DWDM in industry standard QSFP28 form factor. Starting this year, major "cloud" data centers are expected to adopt 100G at scale for their switching and routing requirements, thereby increasing the need for 100G connectivity between data centers even more. According to ACG Research, the global market for optical DCI will increase from $1.1 billion in 2014 to $4.7 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 44.9%.

"The current gap in the inter-data center interconnects is at the sub 80km segment, which is being supported by 10G solutions today. ColorZ is filling the gap with 100G links matching the rest of the data center network," said Dr. Loi Nguyen, founder, senior vice president, Optical Interconnect at Inphi. "This demonstrates Inphi's continued industry leadership, as we build on our technology foundation to dramatically reduce the cost of data movement."

"The ability to provide high bandwidth connectivity in a form factor that is smaller, uses less power and is less expensive than today's solutions is a benefit to Microsoft and the cloud market in general," said Jeff Cox, senior director of Network Architecture, Microsoft Corporation. "It offers the opportunity to connect data centers as one and offer dramatic new ways of running big data applications. Microsoft is proud to have played a leading role in the development of Inphi's ColorZ for cloud computing."

"The emergence of the metro data centers to support Cloud services brings to the forefront the need for cost effective, low power 100G DWDM optics in QSFP28 form factor," said Tim Doiron, principal analyst, Intelligent Networking practice at ACG. "Inphi's ColorZ technology is a unique solution that will further advance metro-distributed data center deployment and end-to-end 100G connectivity throughout the Cloud."

ColorZ DWDM Platform Solution Key Features:

• QSFP28 form factor supporting 100G Ethernet
• Extended reach up to 80km
• Enables 4Tb/s capacity over a single fiber
• 4.5W power dissipation
• ITU wavelength grid compatible
• InphiNity™ Core DSP Engine with a unique mixed-mode DSP architecture for high performance, low power applications needing adaptability and configurability
• Multiple programmable FEC options with varying levels of pre-FEC BER performance
• Numerous self-test and loopback modes that allow diagnostic monitoring of channel and system parameters
• Eye-scan, samplers and monitors on all receiver interfaces for link margin and stress testing along with GUI and API routines for data and error analytics 

Come See Us at the OFC 2016
Inphi is showcasing its latest next-generation products in its booth #3611 at OFC 2016 in Anaheim, CA on March 22-24, 2016.

About Inphi
Inphi Corporation is a leading provider of high-speed connectivity solutions. Inphi's end-to-end data transport platform delivers high signal integrity at leading-edge data speeds, addressing performance and bandwidth bottlenecks in networks, from fiber to memory. Inphi's solutions minimize latency in computing environments and enable the rollout of next-generation communications infrastructure. Inphi's solutions provide a vital interface between analog signals and digital information in high-performance systems, such as telecommunications transport systems, enterprise networking equipment, enterprise and data center servers, and storage platforms. To learn more about Inphi, visit www.inphi.com.

Inphi, the Inphi logo and Think fast are registered trademarks of Inphi Corporation. ColorZ is a trademark of Inphi Corporation. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.