It seems as if they finally came to their senses. Quad (4-channel) Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) optical module specification was released today. It seems as if feedback from the public review resulted in increased speed capabilities from 5Gbps to 10Gbps. With four channels each running at 10Gbps, it provides a practical approach to achieving 40Gbps links. However, I for one am not overly impressed with speed claims that simply tout multiple lower level rates in parallel.
That aside, I do see a benefit to this specification - primarily for I/O density on boards. By increasing the density, costs should decrease in the long run. Here is an artists rendition of a QSFP transceiver.
The complete specification can be downloaded here:
http://www.qsfpmsa.org/downloads/QSFP_Specification_Revision_1_0.pdf
This is an overview presentation that has some nice pictures and stuff:
http://www.qsfpmsa.org/downloads/QSFP_MSA-December_2006_R3.pdf
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