In the era of big data, there are more and more high-density and high-bandwidth applications. At this time, the passive optical cable or copper-based cable system appears to be stretched. In order to ensure the stability and flexible application of transmission, users urgently need a new type of product as the main transmission medium of high-performance computing and data center. In this case, active optical cable products came into being.
Compared with traditional cables, active optical cables have many advantages, such as high transmission rate, long transmission distance, low energy consumption, convenient use, etc. They can help communication equipment enjoy the huge advantages of optical transmission, and are ideal transmission cables in data centers, consumer electronics and other fields.
With the irreversible trend of "optical advance and copper retreat", the future will be the era of "all-optical network", and the active optical cable technology will penetrate into every corner of the high-speed interconnection market.
The appearance of active optical cable AOC is similar to that of DAC, but the transmission mode and application environment are different.
There are four types of active optical cable AOC: 10G SFP+AOC, 25G SFP28 AOC, 40G QSFP+AOC and 100G QSFP28 AOC. Their main difference is the different speed.
Structure And Signal Transmission Mode
Active optical cable AOC uses a section of optical cable to connect two optical transceivers. The external power supply is used for signal transmission. The transmission mode is electric-optical-electric conversion. The electrical signal is converted into an optical signal in the A-end connector. The optical signal is then transmitted to the B-end connector through the middle optical cable, and then the optical signal is converted into an electrical signal in the B-end connector.
Features And Advantages
Active optical cable AOC has the characteristics of low power consumption, small size, light weight and strong heat dissipation. Compared with copper cable, it has longer transmission distance (up to 100~300 m) and better transmission performance. Compared with optical module, active optical cable has no problem of polluted interface, which greatly improves the stability and reliability of the system and reduces the management cost of the computer room.
Transmission Principle
Take QSFP+AOC as an example, the two ends of the cable (A end and B end) are QSFP optical module devices respectively. At A end, the data input Din is the electrical signal. The electrical signal is converted into the optical signal of a specific wavelength through the E-O Converter, and the optical signal is input into the optical cable after modulation and coupling; After the optical signal reaches the B end through the optical cable, the optical signal is detected by the optical detector (O-E Converter) and amplified, and the corresponding electrical signal is output by Dout. The B end and A end transmit symmetrically.
Post time: Mar-06-2023
