Marvell intros world's first secure optical Ethernet transceiver devices

SANTA CLARA, USA: Marvell, a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, has introduced the newest members of its Alaska family of secure optical Ethernet transceivers for datacenters and carrier networks.

These four new Alaska products are intended to be the world's first commercially available transceivers to cover applications at 10G, 1G and 100Mb Ethernet speeds.

The new Marvell Alaska 88X2140M quad-port and 88X2120M dual-port series of 10G transceivers feature XFI 10G serial and reduced XAUI interfaces to support SFP+ applications. These 10G PHYs are well-suited for dense multi-port applications such as carrier class switches and routers. The new Alaska 88E1542M and 88E1522M products are designed to support 1000BASE-X and 100BASE-FX in quad-port and dual-port configurations in space-efficient, cost-optimized packages enabling high port-densities as well as modular applications.

"The adoption of optical Ethernet in carrier networks that require highly secure connectivity and time synchronization while using existing infrastructure, demands innovative solutions. We believe that our new generation of Alaska transceivers meets these demands while lowering the operating costs and improving profitability for our end customers," said Lakshmikant Bhupathi, Director of Marketing for Alaska Products, Marvell Semiconductor. "The introduction of these new optical PHY devices broadens our product portfolio to address Gigabit and 10Gb switching and connectivity applications."

These new members of the Alaska family incorporate Marvell's second generation LinkCrypt technology. LinkCrypt innovatively merges MAC layer security functions in the Ethernet physical layer to enable secure, converged networks delivering voice, video and data capabilities. It is a foundation technology designed to embed security into the network fabric to build standards-compliant security solutions into existing and new Ethernet infrastructure deployments.

Timing aware Ethernet capabilities supported in these new Alaska devices are designed to meet time synchronization requirements for carrier networks and IP/Ethernet centric cellular backhaul networks. Time-aware Ethernet technology is comprised of synchronous Ethernet and IEEE 1588 Time Stamping features. Synchronous Ethernet enables physical layer clock recovery and IEEE 1588, also known as Precision Timing Protocol (PTP), packet-based distribution of precise time and frequency over Ethernet.

These two features form the foundation for transitioning from TDM to Ethernet backhaul by achieving SONET/SDH like accuracies for timing and synchronization. Marvell's Alaska PHY offers both the synchronous Ethernet and PTP time stamping features that allow a high-level of accuracy and performance for carrier-grade and industrial Ethernet applications.