Jun 7 2010
Altera reported that NEC has selected its Stratix IV GT FPGAs for application in the latter’s Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexed (DWDM) system. The FPGAs will be used in an advanced 100G transponder card for the DWDM system to support the increasing traffic.
Altera's Stratix IV FPGA
The 100G transponder card of NEC has the ability to carry data traffic of 100 GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) along with real-time operation. The transponder card will leverage many Stratix IV GX and GT FPGAs to perform the optical transport network (OTN) framer functions including 10.3-Gbps CAUI-MLD and 11.2-Gbps SFI-S interface.
The 100 GbE-based DWDM system is anticipated to be deployed in the beginning of 2011. The 100 GbE is recognized as the future of Ethernet as it is capable of transporting large traffic from IP applications such as Web 2.0, bandwidth-intensive services and peer-to-peer video in medical, broadcast, military and communications sectors.
A senior expert in NEC Nobuhiro Kawahara said that the Stratix IV GT FPGA from Altera was the only available chip that enabled them to demonstrate 100 GbE transmissions for building a 100G transponder card for DWDM system. The Stratix FPGAs offered the performance, embedded transceiver speeds and density that they required. This enabled them to integrate the devices easily with the DWDM system and record some highest data rate speeds, he noted.
The senior director of communications division at Altera, Arun Iyengar commented that the Stratix IV GT devices have been designed for applications in 100G systems. These devices are a big success as many of the DWDM suppliers have chosen the devices for their 100G systems. With these FPGAs, NEC can satisfy the tough design requirements as well as minimize the board complexity and system power, Iyengar noted.