Marvell's Media Detect Feature And Finisar's GBIC Modules Address Gigabit Media Selection - Company Business and Marketing

Computer Technology Review, June, 2001

Marvell and Finisar Corp. announced they have teamed up to offer the industry's first Gigabit solutions to provide end-users with complete flexibility in copper and fiber media selection. These two solutions consist of Marvell's Alaska Ultra PHY transceiver, offering an integrated circuit (IC) solution, and Finisar's family of Gigabit Interface Converters (GBICs), offering hot-pluggable modular support for both fiber and copper interfaces.

Marvell's Alaska Ultra transceiver offers simultaneous support of both copper and fiber interfaces, whereby the copper port is connected to a transformer and RJ45 connector, and the fiber port is connected to a Gigabit fiber-optic module or GBIC device. The device's Media Detect feature automatically senses whether the end-user has inserted a CAT 5 copper or fiber-optic cable, performs Auto-Negotiation, and provides seamless "plug and play" configuration.

Working in collaboration with Marvell, Finisar already offers an alternative approach to Gigabit media independence. Based on Marvell's Alaska Gigabit Ethernet PHY, the Finisar FCM-8519-3 offers GBIC support for 1000BASE-T on CAT 5 UTP copper media. In conjunction with Finisar's complete line of fiber-optic GBIC products, it provides significant benefit to the customer base by offering fiber or copper Gigabit connections interchangeably.

Marvell's Alaska Ultra Gigabit Ethernet over copper transceiver samples (88E1011S) are currently available while the Finisar FCM-8519-3 1000BASE-T GBIC module is currently in volume production.