What is the difference between male and female MPO fiber patch cords? Which optical module is used?

With the rapid development of the Internet, traffic has increased rapidly, and data centers have higher requirements for speed and bandwidth. In the 40G/100G data center cabling scheme, parallel transmission technology makes multi-fiber MPO jumpers widely used. What we commonly call MPO jumper is actually composed of OM3/OM4 multimode fiber jumper or single-mode fiber jumper with MPO connector.

There are many types of MPO connectors, but we can distinguish them from the number of cores (number of fiber arrays), polarity, male and female, and end face type (PC or APC), but this article will talk about the male Knowledge of head and female head. In fact, the male head and the female head can be distinguished from the appearance. The male head obviously has two guide pins (PIN pins), while the female head does not. The connection between MPO connectors is precisely aligned through PIN pins, and the two MPO connectors connected to each other must be one male and one female.

Female connectors are usually used in 40G/100G SR4 multi-mode parallel optical modules. Because the MPO interface of the optical module uses a male connector, it is necessary to use an MPO female connector for connection. When connecting a 40G/100G SR4 multimode optical module, we need to connect a 12-core MPO female multimode OM3/OM4 fiber (polarity B).