MSA Interview
Companies gear up to make 800 Gig modules a reality
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
Nine companies have established a multi-source agreement (MSA) to develop optical specifications for 800-gigabit pluggable modules.
The MSA has been created to address the continual demand for more networking capacity in the data centre, a need that is doubling roughly every two years. The largest switch chips deployed have a 12.8 terabit-per-second (Tbps) switching capacity while 25.6-terabit and 51-terabit devices are in development.
“The MSA members believe that for 25.6Tbps and 51.2Tbps switching silicon, 800-gigabit interconnects are required to deliver the required footprint and density,” says Maxim Kuschnerov, a spokesperson for the 800G Pluggable MSA.