AEC active cable - DAC high-speed cable/alternative to AOC active cable?SFP Module Production

AEC active cable is issued by HiWire Alliance. HiWire AEC specification defines the standard of basic electrical and mechanical specifications. The AEC active cable supports transmission rates of 100G, 200G and 400G. The package type includes QSFP56, OSFP and QSFP-DD. The longest transmission distance can reach 7 meters. It has the forward error correction (FEC) function and cable retiming function, which can ensure that the signal is fully balanced with ultra-low bit error rate.

AEC active cable is a key enabling technology of DDC (distributed enclosure) architecture, which overcomes the density, weight and performance limitations of copper DAC, as well as the cost and availability of AOC. Its advantages lie in low power consumption, low cost and space saving. Among them, the power consumption is 25% lower than optical devices, the cost is 50% lower than optical components, and the volume is smaller than DAC. Compared with DAC, it can save up to 70% of space, and it is more reliable than optics.

AEC active cables are mainly used for the connection between ToR and servers, distributed chassis, and each rack can route up to 500 cables. The above is the AEC active cable and its advantages. With the new high-performance software workload entering the network, it is the most important to have a reliable and low-cost 400G interconnection solution.