Luxtera has introduced its low-power 40G active optical cable (AOC), Blazar, which saves more than 30 per cent in energy consumption when compared to competing products, improving data centre power consumption and thermal efficiency.
Low power Blazar also incorporates Intrusion Detection and Protection (IDP) features, which provide data centres with the security necessary to maintain data integrity. Underscoring its new advanced offerings, Blazar was selected to serve as the cabling solution backbone for SCinet, the world's fastest network, at this year’s SC09 conference.
Low power Blazar transceivers operate at less than 20mW/Gbps, well below power consumption of traditional multimode VCSEL optics, thus significantly reducing heat dissipation, operating expenses and the carbon footprint of data centres. By combining CMOS photonics technology and single-mode fibre, low power Blazar maintains a low price point while simultaneously supporting long reach connectivity of more than 4,000 metres. Its high level of reliability and design flexibility make the low power AOC an ideal interconnect for HPC clusters and high density applications such as blade servers.
With the addition of patent pending IDP features, low power Blazar is the first secure optical cable available for HPC deployments. To deliver this feature, the new Blazar takes advantage of Silicon Photonics' optoelectronic integration capability as it utilises embedded germanium photodetectors with associated receiver logic to detect cable intrusion attempts. Additionally, low power Blazar uses high performance single-mode, bend insensitive fibre to achieve a fibre bent radius of 5mm with no light escaping, significantly reducing the possibility of cable intrusions.
