Q:Active® Active Copper Cables
Signal Integrity
Deliver 300% reach extension over passive copper solutions while consuming 80% less power than competing optical solutions.

As data rates and port densities in today’s Data Centers continue to increase, system designers must choose between two extremes to meet their connectivity requirements. Fiber optic interconnects allow extended reaches, but the solutions are expensive and power-hungry. Copper cables offer a low-power solution, but the thickness, weight, and attenuation limit port counts. As line rates approach 40 Gbps, passive copper cables will not support links over more than a few meters.
Intersil’s Lane Extender technology for active copper cables provides a 300% reach extension over passive copper solutions while consuming 80% less power than many competing optical solutions. Driving Intersil’s Active Cables is our family of small form-factor, multi-channel Lane Extender ICs. This technology is optimized for the current and emerging form factors such as QSFP+ (Infiniband and 40G Ethernet), SFP+ and Mini SAS Interconnects.
Products
Typical Applications
- InfiniBand (SDR, DDR & QDR) Interconnects
- 10G and 40G Ethernet Interconnects
- SAS-2.1 Interconnects
- DisplayPort 1.2 Interconnects
Features
- Thinner gauge cable
- Extends cable reach 3x
- Improved BER
- Data rates up to 11.1 Gbps
- Low Power consumption
