Many partners do not know much about the packaging types of optical modules, so in this article, ETU-LINK introduces you to what are the common packaging types of optical modules, right?

1. SFP

SFP is known as small form-factor Pluggable, which defines the standard to be from 1Gb/s to 28Gb/s single channel SFP package, SFP module compresses the size and power consumption of optical module by putting CDR and electric dispersion compensation outside the module. The package form, the common transmission rate of 1.25G, 2.5G, 6G.

2. SFP+

SFP+ is the mainstream package form of 10G optical module, SFP+ optical module usually transmits light at 850nm, 1310nm or 1550nm, used for 10G bps SONET/SDH, Fibre Channel, gigabit Ethernet, 10 gigabit Ethernet and other applications, also including DWDM links. SFP+ optical modules have a more compact form factor than X2 and XFP packages (same size as SFP) and cost less than XFP, X2, XENPAK products.

3. XFP

XFP is a hot-swappable 10G optical module package, a protocol-independent optical transceiver, typically operating at 850nm, 1310nm or 1550nm, for 10Gbps SONET/SDH, Fibre Channel, gigabit Ethernet, 10 gigabit Ethernet and other applications, also including DWDM links.

4. SFP28

SFP28 is the package form of 25G optical module, 25G SFP28 optical module has SR, LR, ER, CWDM, DWDM.

5. QSFP+

QSFP, known as Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable, uses four independent transceiver channels with 10G transmission rate and a total transmission rate of up to 40G. QSFP+ was created to meet the market demand for higher density, high-speed pluggable solutions.

6. QSFP28

The 100G QSFP28 optical module is the same size as the QSFP+ optical module and also has four parallel data channels, but the transmission rate of each channel is increased from 10Gbit/s to 25Gbit/s, thus reaching a transmission rate of 100Gbps. The QSFP28 optical module can be upgraded from 25G to 100G directly without going through 40G. In addition, the four 25Gb/s parallel data channels of the QSFP28 optical module are also compliant with the 100G Ethernet standard. In a 100G fiber optic link composed of QSFP28 optical modules, the 100G uplink is composed of four 25G links, while the network architecture of each 25G downlink is exactly the same as the cabling structure of a 10G network, but the transmission capacity of the entire network is greatly increased. Therefore, compared with the 10G→40G→100G upgrade, the 10G→25G→100G upgrade can greatly simplify the data center cabling system and reduce the cabling system laying cost.

Finally, the optical module package more than these, and the technology is constantly breaking through, so far, the transmission rate of optical modules can already reach 400G, but because of the high cost of 200G, 400G optical modules, from the real scale of use still need some time.