Molex and TE Connectivity Announce High-Speed Interconnect Second Source Agreements

Molex Incorporated and TE Connectivity Ltd. have announced second source agreements under which TE Connectivity will have the right to manufacture, market and sell worldwide several Molex high-speed interconnect solutions including the z-Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus (zQSFP+) and the Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (zSFP+), among others. Molex will have the right to manufacture, market and sell worldwide TE Connectivity's Quadra High-Speed I/O Connector. These products are the plan of record for the InfiniBand* Trade Association (IBTA), the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and other standards bodies. Molex and TE Connectivity will work jointly to deliver electrically and mechanically interchangeable products to the market as quickly as possible by sharing design and manufacturing processes. The two companies will also continue to partner on industry standard solutions to ensure customers have the products necessary to meet design demands. Molex and TE Connectivity are world-class connector manufacturers with global design and manufacturing footprints. By pairing high-speed/high-signal integrity technology with robust manufacturing capabilities, the companies will be able to offer customers a combination of innovation, performance and service. Both companies are leaders in the high-speed connector industry in R&D spending, and employ customer-focused, customer-driven product design and development processes that enable solutions to meet performance, quality and cost expectations. Supporting next-generation 100 Gbps Ethernet and 100 Gbps InfiniBand Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) applications, the zQSFP+ solution from Molex is designed for high-density interconnect applications. Components of the system include an SMT connector; copper passive cable assemblies; EMI cages and active optical cables. The zQSFP+ SMT 38 -circuit connectors and cage assemblies provide excellent signal integrity and electromagnetic Interference (EMI) protection. They also support 10 Gbps Ethernet and 16 Gbps Fibre Channel applications, with the ability to support up to 40 Gbps serial lanes. The Quadra high-speed I/O connector from TE Connectivity addresses 100 Gbps market requirements with a new interface specifically developed for 28 Gbps per differential pair data rates. Due to the optimised connector performance, it is expected to be able to support data rates up to 40 Gbps per differential pair. The Quadra connector technology, with various pair count configurations, is being proposed to support industry standards and multi-source agreements. In high-density applications, it can be used to support copper cable and short-reach optic interconnections, and in long-reach applications, it can support higher power optical transceivers. Quadra connectors have companion cage systems that incorporate electromagnetic interference containment and thermal management elements. The architecture of the connector arranges the differential pairs in a way that provides system implementers with the ability to optimise routing to achieve additional channel benefits. www.molex.com www.te.com