A P Products: Meritec Infiniband Connectors

Meritec is now offering a new line of cable assemblies to support InfiniBand™ (IB) architecture specifications and other industry standard interfaces for high-speed data transfer applications to include 10G Fibre Channel, Serial ATA (SATA), and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), 10G Ethernet-CX4, and PCI Express.

Meritec’s new offering is designed to support channel-based switched fabric I/O technology and industry standards for continuous flow serial or parallel link computing. The assembly provides for the continuous uninterrupted flow of serial or parallel data.

Direct Attach - Meritec’s new cable assembly technology is based on direct attach methodology where the signal wires in the cable are attached directly to the connector’s contacts eliminating the need for an interstitial printed circuit board. This avoids the undesirable effects the PCB can have on the signal integrity at higher data rates.

Meritec’s Direct Attach 4X cable assembly meets IB™ standards by allowing for high-speed data rate transfers of >2.5Gbps per lane at lengths up to 8.0 meters with 24 AWG, not equalized and meets Ethernet-CX4 standards up to 17 meters. Direct attach methodology offers cross-talk performance of <1.0%* which has been difficult to achieve in 4X designs utilizing internal printed circuit boards for wire termination. Greater bandwidth and exceptional overall electrical performance are also favorable byproducts of the design.

Meritec’s Direct Attach 12X cable assembly meets IB™ standards by allowing for high-speed data rate transfers of >2.5Gbps per lane at lengths up to 8.0 meters with 24 AWG, not equalized and meets Ethernet-CX4 standards up to 17 meters. Direct attach methodology offers cross-talk performance of <1.0%* which has been difficult to achieve in 12X designs utilizing internal printed circuit boards for wire termination. Greater bandwidth and exceptional overall electrical performance are also favorable byproducts of the design. The use of three lengths of 4X cable provides greater flexibility than does one bundled 12X cable.

Passive Equalization - Meritec’s Direct Attach 4X and Direct Attach 12X are offered with passive equalization circuits built into the connectors back-shells to achieve higher data rate transfers (>2.5Gbps) and/or these longer IB cable assembly lengths:12.5 meters, 24 AWG; 9.5 meters, 26 AWG; 8.5 meters, 28 AWG.

The connector interface utilized in the Direct Attach series of cable assemblies has been selected by the various standards organizations responsible for InfiniBand™, 10G Fibre Channel, SATA, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), 10G Ethernet-CX4 and PCI Express.

* <1% nearest neighbor and <2% multiple aggressors