128GFC: A Preview of the New Fibre Channel Speed

This webcast discusses 128GFC, the new Fibre Channel speed recently ratified by the T11 Fibre Channel standards committee. This new speed takes Fibre Channel further into the future. The latest generation of Fibre Channel (128GFC) has a rate of 112.2Gbps (PAM4) for a single lane variant. This speed is 5.6% faster than 100Gb Ethernet single lane variants. Fibre Channel was able to increase the speed and still maintain two generations of backward compatibility which is key to Fibre Channel success. Previous generation SFP optical modules (32GFC and 64GFC) will be able to plug into the latest generation of Fibre Channel 128GFC products and 128GFC products will be able to seamlessly interoperate with previous generations of Fibre Channel products.

128GFC products will support existing infrastructure of fiber cables for multi-mode variants and single mode variants. 128GFC is also able to support the previous reach of 100 meters of OM4 without sacrificing performance in link quality or increasing errors (BER).

The Fibre Channel committee also streamlined the process for link speed negotiation and training which are key to multiple generations of backward compatibility. In the webcast we will discuss this significant Fibre Channel advancement.

Presented by Dean Wallace, Marvell Technology; Mark Jones, Broadcom; Kiran Ranabhor, Cisco