TheXFP (10 gigabit small form-factor pluggable) is a standard fortransceivers for high-speedcomputer network andtelecommunication links that useoptical fiber. It was defined by an industry group in 2002, along with its interface to other electrical components, which is calledXFI.
XFP is a slightly larger form factor than the popularsmall form-factor pluggable transceiver, SFP and SFP+.
XFP modules arehot swappable and support multiplephysical layer variants. They typically operate atnear-infraredwavelengths (colors) of 850 nm, 1310 nm or 1550 nm. XFP modules use an LCfiber connector type to achieve higher density.
Principal applications include10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gbit/sFibre Channel,synchronous optical networking (SONET) atOC-192 rates, synchronous optical networking STM-64, 10 Gbit/sOptical Transport Network (OTN) OTU-2, and parallel optics links. They can operate over a single wavelength or use densewavelength-division multiplexing techniques. They include digital diagnostics that provide management that were added to the SFF-8472 standard.[1][failed verification]
The XFP specification was developed by the XFP Multi Source Agreement Group. It is an informal agreement of an industry group, not officially endorsed by any standards body. The first preliminary specification was published on March 27, 2002. The first public release was on July 19, 2002. It was adopted on March 3, 2003, and updated with minor updates through August 31, 2005.[2]
The chair of the XFP group was Robert Snively ofBrocade Communications Systems, and technical editor was Ali Ghiasi ofBroadcom.[2] The organization's web site was maintained until 2009.[3]
The XFI electrical interface specification is a 10 gigabit per second chip-to-chip electrical interface specification defined as part of the XFPmulti-source agreement. It was also developed by the XFP MSA group. XFI is sometimes pronounced as "X" "F" "I" and other times as "ziffie".
XFI provides a single lane running at 10.3125 Gbit/s when using a64B/66B encoding scheme. Aserializer/deserializer is often used to convert between XFI and a wider interface such asXAUI that has four lanes running at 3.125 Gbit/s using8B/10B encoding.
The physical dimensions of the XFP transceiver are slightly larger than the originalsmall form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP). One of the reasons for the increase in size is to allow for on-boardheat sinks for more cooling.[citation needed]
| XFP[2] | SFP (for comparison)[4] | |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 8.5 mm (0.33 inches) | 8.5 mm (0.33 inches) |
| Width | 18.35 mm (0.72 inches) | 13.4 mm (0.53 inches) |
| Depth | 78.0 mm (3.10 inches) | 56.5 mm (2.22 inches) |
XFP are available with a variety of transmitter and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the requiredoptical reach over the available optical fiber type (e.g.multi-mode fiber orsingle-mode fiber). XFP modules are commonly available in several different categories:[citation needed]
The XFP packaging was smaller than theXENPAK form-factor which had been published earlier (by almost a year).[5]Some vendors supported both, or the XENPAK follow-ons called XPAK andX2.[6]
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