Intel prepares for 5G demands with its new Stratix 10 TX FPGA

Intel has demonstrated that it may be ready for next-generation data-loads and transmission demands at this year's Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference, held in San Diego this week. To this end, the company unveiled its state-of-the-art field-programmable gate array (FPGA) transceiver at the show. It is known as the Stratix 10 TX FPGA, and can deliver the bandwidth required by concerns such as cloud computing, gaming and 5G going into the next decade. 

The Stratix 10 TX facilitates these needs through the latest developments in PAM4 (or pulse-amplitude modulation at four levels) technology. It enables transmission at up to 58 gigabits per second (58 Gb/s). Each new transceiver possesses 144 transceiver lanes with 1-58Gb/s serial data rates. The new FPGA also supports 30Gbps NRZ and dual-mode modulation for flexible compatibility.

These new advancements in bandwidth technology is what will probably deliver 400Gb Ethernet bandwidths. Intel also claims that it is first to market with such a solution. The company also asserts that a designer can scale from 100 to 400Gb Ethernet with the Stratix 10 TX FPGA. It also needs only 8 channels to work with 400G Ethernet FPGAs, and has also been integrated into a 10nm 112G PAM4 high-speed transceiver test chip. Therefore, the bandwidth improvements that this next-gen FPGA represents may not be too far away from the market.