Backplane bandwidth of fiber optic switches
Backplane bandwidth represents the overall data exchange capacity of the switch, measured in Gbps. FlexPlane Optical Flex Circuits provide versatile, high-density routing on a flexible substrate, and Routed Ribbon Solutions offer cable management and mitigate airflow challenges for low-profile Network interface cards (NICs), switch fabric modules, complex shuffling and backplane applications. However, 48 ports x 1Gbps (plus potentially 2 x 10Gbps in network module) definitely doesn't squeeze into 32Gbps stack ring, so the stack ring is contended. The LightCONEX® series of optical plug-in and backplane module connectors for OpenVPX systems is Smiths Interconnects' answer to the stringent SWaP requirements of today's defense applications in which fiber optics are replacing high bandwidth copper interconnects. Next-generation VPX interconnects allow the signal transition path to expand to 100G bandwidth through a traditional copper backplane.
Read More