400G BiDi MSA Group Releases Initial Optical Specification

400G for Multimode.

The 400G Bidirectional (BiDi) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) Group today announced the publication of release 1.0 of its 400G-BD4.2 Specification for a 400 Gb/s optical interface over 100 meters of multimode fiber. The MSA group is dedicated to defining optical interface specifications based on a dual wavelength BiDi transmission technology, which enables a reduction in the fiber count relative to other solutions. The specification leverages 100 Gb/s BiDi for Ethernet applications and is compatible with the widely available and deployed parallel multimode fiber cabling infrastructure.

Application

The 400G BiDi MSA group will define optical specifications for transmitting 400 Gbps Ethernet traffic over “4+4” MPO connectorized multimode optical fiber (OM3, OM4 and OM5) – consistent with the optical fiber and connector currently used for 40GBASE-SR4 and 100GBASE-SR4. This enables a migration path for existing fiber infrastructure towards higher speeds. This optical interface is capable of being implemented in various form factor types, such as QSFP-DD