Gourgen Oganessyan, Staff Product Marketing Engineer, Staff Product Marketing Enginee, Intersil Corp.

Active direct-attach cables are emerging as a popular alternative to passive copper cables and optical transceivers. They offer greater reach and thinner gauge than passive cables, pushing out the point at which optical transceivers are required. This leads to cost and power savings and improved cable management.

Several industry standards have recognized the value of active cables and are updating their specifications to enable support for these interconnects.

This tutorial gives an overview of active cable technology and discusses copper and optical cable designs. An overview of active cable provisions in various high-speed communications standards is given including typical performance.