Press release

FCI AirMax VS® and ZipLine™ connectors transmit error-free 40Gb/s data

ETTERS, PA. (May 5, 2008) — FCI, a leading supplier of connectors and interconnect systems, recently completed multi-channel tests for both the AirMax VS® and the ZipLine™ connector systems, using twin test vehicles, in which the high-speed connectors transmitted error-free data at 40Gb/s.

The test configurations consisted of a set of four Broadcom BCM8072 dual-channel 10Gb/s transceivers and two IEEE802.3ap reference backplanes with either AirMax VS connectors or ZipLine backplane connectors. FCI successfully transmitted error-free data over eight 1-meter channels simultaneously. With the daughter cards and backplane made of Nelco 4000-12SI material, each of the channels achieved a bit-error rate (BER) of better than 5e-16 in the presence of seven aggressor channels. With four channels running in each direction, the resultant aggregate data rate was 40 Gb/s.

AirMax VS Connector has been a leading high speed backplane connector since 2004. The recently announced ZipLine Connector system offers customers the highest signal density of any backplane or orthogonal midplane connector presently on the market. Both AirMax VS and ZipLine connector systems are ideally suited for multiple 10Gb/s channel applications.

ZipLine connectors are built upon FCI’s proven AirMax VS technology and offers similar signal integrity performance. Like AirMax VS connectors, the ZipLine connector system uses edge-coupling technology to deliver high signal density with low insertion loss and low crosstalk, all without the use of costly and space-consuming metal shields. Data rates can scale from 2.5Gb/s to beyond 12Gb/s without requiring re-design of a basic platform.

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