George Noh, Technical Marketing Manager, Vitesse

Recently, there has been considerable amount of work in standardizing Cu Cable links in communication systems. They have shown up in standards such as SFF8431, IEEE802.3ba, FC-PI-4, SFF8461, FC-PI-5, and IEEE802.3ba. A common question is how far a link could go on a passive Cu cable. Traversing within a data center rack only requires 3-5 meters of Cu Cable. Going from rack to rack could potentially lead you to link distances up to 20 meters. This paper explores the latest technologies in Advanced Equalizer Integrated Circuits, and Advanced Cu Cable assemblies in order to study the problem of closing a passive Cu Cable link of 20 meters long.