Marvell Announces Complete Physical Layer Solutions for 10 Gigabit Ethernet Systems with Agilent Technologies

Business Wire, March 13, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Optical Fiber Communications 2002

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2002

The Marvell Alaska(R) X 10 Gigabit Ethernet XAUI SERDES and the

Agilent XENPAK Optical Transceiver to be Demonstrated Live at the

Optical Fiber Conference 2002

Marvell(R) (Nasdaq:MRVL), a technology leader in the development of extreme broadband communications solutions, today announced a complete 10 Gigabit Ethernet physical layer solution using the Marvell Alaska(R) X 10 Gigabit Ethernet XAUI SERDES IC and Agilent Technologies serial 10Gbase-LR XENPAK transceiver. Marvell and Agilent will demonstrate the solution in Agilent's booth (#2001) at the Optical Fiber Conference 2002 in Anaheim, California from March 19th-21st.

The XENPAK Multi Source Agreement (MSA) defines a fiber optic transceiver module for 10 Gigabit Ethernet applications. The Agilent optical module interfaces with the Marvell Alaska X XAUI SERDES IC to provide a complete physical layer solution for 10 Gigabit Ethernet systems. The optical module and the physical layer ICs are typically the highest frequency components in the system and present significant technical challenges to system designers. Seamless interoperability between these high-speed optical and electrical components is critical for system designs at very high data rates such as 10 Gigabits per second and beyond. Agilent and Marvell have performed thorough testing to prove robust interoperability between the Marvell Alaska X XAUI SERDES device and the Agilent XENPAK module. Several tests performed using the Marvell Alaska X devices and the Agilent XENPAK module, with various IEEE data patterns, achieved bit error rates (BER) better than 10e-15 over 10km of single mode fiber. This is several orders of magnitude better than the IEEE requirements for 10 Gigabit Ethernet links.

"Agilent and Marvell are working closely to tackle a critical piece of high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet systems," stated Tom Fawcett, Product Marketing Manager for Agilent's Networking Solutions Division. "Marvell's implementation of IEEE compliant XAUI interface allows our XENPAK module to be seamlessly connected with the Alaska X device, providing proven physical layer solution for networking systems."

"Marvell continues to set the industry pace for 10 Gigabit Ethernet solutions with our 'best in class' Alaska X device, featuring the lowest power, the highest performance and the smallest package size. Our commitment to continue to develop the most advanced products for our customers is evidenced by the interoperability between Agilent's innovative XENPAK module and our Alaska X device which allows for accelerated time to market," commented Gary Smerdon, Marvell's Vice President of Marketing for the Communications Business Group.

Marvell Alaska X 10 Gigabit XAUI SERDES IC

The Marvell Alaska X device, the 88X2040, is the industry's first 0.15 micron CMOS 10 Gigabit Ethernet XAUI Quad 3.125 Gigabit SERDES. The 88X2040 transceiver incorporates all of the necessary functions to implement the Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) and Physical Medium Attachment (PMA) functions as specified in the latest 10 Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3ae draft, while achieving very low power dissipation of 1.3 Watts.

The Alaska X device incorporates four transceivers operating up to 3.125 Gb/s, each with a selectable 8B/10B encoder/decoder. The four transceivers can operate at 1.0, 1.25, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.125 Gbps to support a variety of backplane applications. Further, the Alaska X transceiver performs clock and data recovery and de-serialization for the receive path, as well as pre-emphasis, serialization and clock generation for the transmit path. The Alaska X device utilizes lower rate clocks as reference for internal clock generation. The device also allows for the use of either 62.5, 125 or 156.25 MHz reference inputs to provide flexible clocking.

The parallel interface on the Alaska X device is a 10 Gigabit Media Independent Interface (XGMII) as specified by the IEEE standard. In addition to the latest IEEE XGMII HSTL I/O support at 1.5V, the Alaska X transceiver features support for XGMII connection to legacy ASIC devices using HSTL I/O operating at 1.8V. For 10 Gigabit Ethernet applications, the device connects to optical modules such as the XENPAK using the XAUI interface and to 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch devices using the XGMII interface.

Agilent XENPAK Optical Transceiver

The Agilent serial 10Gbase-LR XENPAK optical transceiver is an "intelligent" LAN PHY that incorporates the complete physical layer functionality from the optical interface to the XAUI (4 channels at 3.125 Gbps) electrical interface, including both 8/10B and 64/66B coding and decoding. It has been designed to the proposed 802.3ae IEEE 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard and the XENPAK multi-source agreement (MSA), co-founded by Agilent.

The new 1310 nm, serial transceiver has a range of 10 km. Agilent's own uncooled, directly modulated laser technology delivers unmatched 10 Gigabit performance without the need for traditional modulators, coolers, or complex optical multiplexing. For more information, go to www.agilent.com/view/networking.>