200G Transceivers Guide

200G/port systems allow datacenters and high-performance computing environments to meet growing bandwidth needs at lower cost and power per gigabit. Key benefits include:

•           Increase in bandwidth density by a factor of 2 when compared to 100G/port systems.

•           Easy connectivity to compute nodes and Network Interface Cards (NICs) that use 50Gb/s PAM-4 per lane. NICs are transitioning from using 10G/25G SFP to 50G SFP ports, and from 100G QSFP28 ports to 100G-2 / 200G-4 QSFP56 ports.

•           Upgrade leaf-to-spine links from 100G to 200G with no change to existing fiber plant.

•           Reduce the number of optical fiber links, connectors and patch panels by a factor of 2 when compared to 100G/port platforms.

Yes, if the 100G links use either of the following types of fiber, then the links can be upgraded to 200G without changing any of the underlying fiber connectivity:

i)          Duplex single mode fiber with a max length of 2km, or

ii)         Parallel multimode fiber, with a max length of 70m for OM3, or 100m for OM4 fiber.

The QSFP-200G-FR4 uses the same fiber type and connectors (duplex LC UPC/PC, SMF) as all 100G duplex SMF optics (such as 100G-CWDM4, 100G-LR4/LRL4, 100G-DR/FR/LR).

The QSFP-200G-SR4 uses the same fiber type and connectors (MPO-12 UPC/PC, parallel MMF) as the 100G- SR4/XSR4, enabling simple 100G-to-200G upgrade with no change to fiber.

No. There is no industry standard for 200G over duplex MMF. For operation over MMF, JTOPTICS offers the QSFP- 200G-SR4, which uses parallel multimode optical fiber using an MPO-12 optical connector – i.e. the same fiber type and fiber connector as used for 100-SR4.

They all refer to the same transceiver type. The electrical data path interface of a 200G QSFP consists of 4 lanes, with each lane carrying 50Gbit/s of data when configured for 200GE operation. Each lane of a 200G QSFP is designed to handle up to 56Gbit/s, hence it is sometimes referred to as a QSFP56. 

All 200G QSFP modules utilize 4x electrical lanes in each direction (4 transmit lanes and 4 receive lanes), operating at a data rate of 50Gb/s PAM-4, enabling an aggregate bandwidth of 200Gb/s. All JTOPTICS 200G QSFPs are dual-rate, which means the electrical interface can also be configured to operate at 4x 25Gb/s NRZ, for an aggregate bandwidth of 100Gb/s