Press Release
For Immediate Release

Molex Launches New GbX FR408 Reference Backplane: 10Gbps, 1 Meter Channel Demonstrated With GbX and Cost Effective Laminate

The new GbX™ FR408™ Reference Backplane Demonstrator from Molex Incorporated has successfully achieved a significant milestone in total real system performance by demonstrating a 1.0 meter 10 Gig channel with Xilinx's Virtex-II Pro™ X FPGA over Isola's affordable FR408 material. The Reference Backplane also provides system and chip design teams an improved method of predicting a component's performance capabilities in an actual datacom or telecom system.

The system is ideal for full system channel optimization for a variety of backplane design applications, including internetworking equipment (servers, hubs and routers); telecommunications equipment (central office, cellular infrastructure and multi-platform service systems); medical diagnostic equipment; and test and measurement equipment.

The Molex GbX Reference Backplane is a multi-variable system design tool, incorporating different routing designs, multiple antipad and launch styles, and several plated through hole stub lengths. The system is also built with a full range of differential PCB channel lengths, allowing designers to manipulate these key design variables that greatly influence the transmission quality from transmitter to receiver. Bottom and top channel routings evaluate transmission performance throughout the board height, while the "bridge" feature allows for the test and design of outboard components, such as I/O connectors.

"Too often, design engineering teams invest time and money without knowing a system's full performance capability. This reference backplane gives them a tool that the entire design team can use," said Gary Humbert, product manager, Molex Incorporated. "The GbX FR408 Reference Backplane, with a Xilinx FPGA, has produced a milestone achievement by showing a true 10Gbps NRZ channel with the GbX press fit backplane connector over a long channel through FR408 material."

"The barriers to next generation backplane system deployment have fallen. Standard 10Gbps NRZ-signaling, with full cross talk, over more than 1 meter (40 inches) of FR408, is an obvious demonstration of physical layer feasibility," stated Brian Seemann, director of technical marketing for Xilinx's Communications Technology Division. "With the board design methodologies from the Molex Reference Backplane Demonstrator, GbX connectors, conventional signaling and system-level functionality in the Virtex-II Pro X and Virtex-4™, designers can develop and manufacture low cost backplane systems that scale anywhere from 2.5 to 10Gbps."

The GbX FR408 system includes extra channels in the form of clock lines that can be used for increased signal support or as experimental lines. It also includes an added eight-inch channel link with a loopback feature that allows for optimal testing.

GbX is a trademark of Teradyne, Inc.
FR408 is a trademark of Isola.
Virtex-II Pro X and Virtex-4 are trademarks of Xilinx, Inc.

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