Optical components manufacturers II‐VI introduced its 56 Gb/s PAM4 VCSEL arrays for 400 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) short reach transceivers and active optical cables (AOCs) deployed in datacenters.

The availability of Ethernet equipment with greater than 12 Tb/s of switching capacity enables hyperscale datacenters to accelerate the migration from 100 to 400 GbE transmission. II-VI’s 8-element VCSEL arrays can be modulated at 56 Gb/s using 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) to achieve a combined 400 Gb/s over short reach multimode links.

(Image: II‐VI)

AOCs and transceivers based on VCSELs offer effective solution for datacenter links that span from 10 to 300 meters. They enable new applications in consumer electronics to connect ultrathin HDTV screens to remotely located driver electronics.