John D'Ambrosia, Manager, Tyco Electronics
Christian Koehler, Product Specialist, Tyco Electronics
Karsten Wolff, Optical Networking, Alcatel
Reducing the overall part count via integration and minimizing the need for signal conditioning and equalization are two strategies that can be used to meet the power requirements of terabit capacity systems. This paper will provide an overview of a test system built by Alcatel to explore this strategy, and the choices Alcatel made in order to improve both bandwidth capacity and crosstalk performance. Full characterization of the passive backplane system has been performed in both frequency and time domain. The paper will summarize the characterization results, and will examine channel testing on a length basis with three types of devices. These results will then be used to discuss the potential impact on overall system architecture and power.