Inphi intros 100G/400G quad linear driver

Inphi Corp. (NYSE: IPHI), a provider of high-speed analog semiconductors, says its new quad linear driver enables complex modulation formats and paves the way for next-generation 100G/400G systems.“Today’s 10G, 40G, and 100G networks typically use basic amplitude or phase modulation signaling techniques, but not both, to encode electronic data onto optical signals,” said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at the Linley Group. “In order to achieve higher performance and higher speed, we believe more complex modulation schemes, in which both amplitude and phase are modulated will be necessary. Such complex modulation formats are best implemented with linear transmitters. Inphi’s IN3214SZ is the industry’s first 32-Gbps integrated quad linear driver for linear transmitter architectures and is designed to enable more complex modulation formats to be implemented.”Today, 100G coherent systems achieve four bits per symbol. Inphi’s IN3214SZ is designed to enable OEMs to implement more complex modulation with up to 16 bits per symbol. Such an efficient modulation format will allow the optical rate to remain the same but the amount of information to be transmitted to increase by a factor of four. Inphi says the IN3214SZ is the industry’s first integrated quad linear driver that enables such complex modulation formats to be implemented.“Inphi is the first company to offer its customers an advanced linear driver that is designed to enable them to build next-generation 100G and 400G communications infrastructure,” said Loi Nguyen, vice president networking, communications, and multi-market products at Inphi. “The IN3214SZ driver offers high bandwidth, high linearity, and low power consumption, so that future systems can be built to keep pace with the burgeoning demand of users.”Sampling today, the IN3214SZ is a differential input, single-ended output, variable gain, linear driver that supports data rates up to 32.5Gbps and has excellent linearity, high bandwidth, and low power dissipation.