The XFP (10 gigabit small form-factor pluggable) is a standard for transceivers for high-speed computer network and telecommunication links that use optical fiber . It was defined by an industry group in 2002, along with its interface to other electrical components, which is called XFI .
29-667: XFP is a slightly larger form factor than the popular small form-factor pluggable transceiver , SFP and SFP+. XFP modules are hot swappable and support multiple physical layer variants . They typically operate at near-infrared wavelengths (colors) of 850 nm, 1310 nm or 1550 nm. XFP modules use an LC fiber connector type to achieve higher density. Principal applications include 10 Gigabit Ethernet , 10 Gbit/s Fibre Channel , synchronous optical networking (SONET) at OC-192 rates, synchronous optical networking STM-64, 10 Gbit/s Optical Transport Network (OTN) OTU-2, and parallel optics links. They can operate over
58-661: A multi-source agreement (MSA) under the auspices of the Small Form Factor Committee . The SFP replaced the larger gigabit interface converter (GBIC) in most applications, and has been referred to as a Mini-GBIC by some vendors. SFP transceivers exist supporting synchronous optical networking (SONET), Gigabit Ethernet , Fibre Channel , PON , and other communications standards. At introduction, typical speeds were 1 Gbit/s for Ethernet SFPs and up to 4 Gbit/s for Fibre Channel SFP modules. In 2006, SFP+ specification brought speeds up to 10 Gbit/s and
87-586: A printed circuit board with an edge connector with 20 pads that mate on the rear with the SFP electrical connector in the host system. The QSFP has 38 pads including 4 high-speed transmit data pairs and 4 high-speed receive data pairs. The physical dimensions of the SFP transceiver (and its subsequent faster variants) are narrower than the later QSFP counterparts, which allows for SFP transceivers to be placed in QSFP ports via an inexpensive adapter. Both are smaller than
116-504: A QSFP port. Both a SFP-DD , which allows for 100 Gbit/s over two lanes, as well as a QSFP-DD specifications, which allows for 400 Gbit/s over eight lanes, have been published. These use a form factor which is directly backward compatible to their respective predecessors. An even larger sibling, the OSFP (Octal Small Format Pluggable) has products being released in 2022 capable of 800 Gbit/s links between network equipment. It
145-408: A connection to different types of optical fiber, SFP provides such equipment with enhanced flexibility. SFP sockets and transceivers are also used for long-distance serial digital interface (SDI) transmission. The SFP transceiver is not standardized by any official standards body, but rather is specified by a multi-source agreement (MSA) among competing manufacturers. The SFP was designed after
174-491: A significant design impact, though form factors have historically evolved slower than individual components. Standardization of form factors is vital for hardware compatibility between different manufacturers. Smaller form factors may offer more efficient use of limited space, greater flexibility in the placement of components within a larger assembly, reduced use of material, and greater ease of transportation and use. However, smaller form factors typically incur greater costs in
203-584: A simple adapter or a special direct attached cable it is possible to connect those interfaces together using just one lane instead of four provided by the QSFP/QSFP+/QSFP28/QSFP56 form factor. The same applies to the QSFP-DD form factor with 8 lanes which can work downgraded to 4/2/1 lanes. The SFP+ ( enhanced small form-factor pluggable ) is an enhanced version of the SFP that supports data rates up to 16 Gbit/s . The SFP+ specification
232-593: A single wavelength or use dense wavelength-division multiplexing techniques. They include digital diagnostics that provide management that were added to the SFF-8472 standard. 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
261-622: A transceiver is not working. Form factor (design) Form factor is a hardware design aspect that defines and prescribes the size, shape, and other physical specifications of components, particularly in electronics . A form factor may represent a broad class of similarly sized components, or it may prescribe a specific standard. It may also define an entire system, as in a computer form factor. As electronic hardware has become smaller following Moore's law and related patterns, ever-smaller form factors have become feasible. Specific technological advances, such as PCI Express , have had
290-520: Is a modular slot for a media-specific transceiver , such as for a fiber-optic cable or a copper cable. The advantage of using SFPs compared to fixed interfaces (e.g. modular connectors in Ethernet switches ) is that individual ports can be equipped with different types of transceivers as required, with the majority including optical line terminals , network cards , switches and routers . The form factor and electrical interface are specified by
319-461: Is a slightly larger version than the QSFP form factor allowing for larger power outputs. The OSFP standard was initially announced in 2016 with the 4.0 version released in 2021 allowing for 800 Gbit/s via 8× 100 Gbit/s electrical data lanes. Its proponents say a low-cost adapter will allow for backwards compatibility with QSFP modules. SFP transceivers are available with a variety of transmitter and receiver specifications, allowing users to select
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#1732801174898348-465: Is a version of SFP with the same mechanical form factor allowing two independent bidirectional channels per port. It is used primarily to increase port density and decrease fiber usage per port. The small form-factor pluggable double density ( SFP-DD ) multi-source agreement is a standard published in 2019 for doubling port density. According to the SFD-DD MSA website: "Network equipment based on
377-500: The GBIC interface, and allows greater port density (number of transceivers per given area) than the GBIC, which is why SFP is also known as mini-GBIC. However, as a practical matter, some networking equipment manufacturers engage in vendor lock-in practices whereby they deliberately break compatibility with generic SFPs by adding a check in the device's firmware that will enable only
406-522: The XFP transceiver . The SFP MSA defines a 256-byte memory map into an EEPROM describing the transceiver's capabilities, standard interfaces, manufacturer, and other information, which is accessible over a serial I²C interface at the 8-bit address 0b1010000X (0xA0). Modern optical SFP transceivers support standard digital diagnostics monitoring (DDM) functions. This feature is also known as digital optical monitoring (DOM). This capability allows monitoring of
435-576: The design , manufacturing , and maintenance phases of the engineering lifecycle , and do not allow the same expansion options as larger form factors. In particular, the design of smaller form-factor computers and network equipment must entail careful consideration of cooling . End-user maintenance and repair of small form-factor electronic devices such as mobile phones is often not possible, and may be discouraged by warranty voiding clauses; such devices require professional servicing—or simply replacement—when they fail. Computer form factors comprise
464-420: The SFP operating parameters in real time. Parameters include optical output power, optical input power, temperature, laser bias current, and transceiver supply voltage. In network equipment, this information is typically made available via Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). A DDM interface allows end users to display diagnostics data and alarms for optical fiber transceivers and can be used to diagnose why
493-594: The SFP-DD will support legacy SFP modules and cables, and new double density products." SFP-DD uses two lanes to transmit. Currently, the following speeds are defined: Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable ( QSFP ) transceivers are available with a variety of transmitter and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the required optical reach over multi-mode or single-mode fiber . Switch and router manufacturers implementing QSFP+ ports in their products frequently allow for
522-558: The XFP multi-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 a 64B/66B encoding scheme. A serializer/deserializer is often used to convert between XFI and a wider interface such as XAUI that has four lanes running at 3.125 Gbit/s using 8B/10B encoding . The physical dimensions of
551-559: The XFP transceiver are slightly larger than the original small form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP). One of the reasons for the increase in size is to allow for on-board heat sinks for more cooling. XFP are available with a variety of transmitter and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the required optical reach over the available optical fiber type (e.g. multi-mode fiber or single-mode fiber ). XFP modules are commonly available in several different categories: The XFP packaging
580-495: The appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the required optical or electrical reach over the available media type (e.g. twisted pair or twinaxial copper cables, multi-mode or single-mode fiber cables). Transceivers are also designated by their transmission speed. SFP modules are commonly available in several different categories. Note that the QSFP/QSFP+/QSFP28/QSFP56 are designed to be electrically backward compatible with SFP/SFP+/SFP28 or SFP56 respectively. Using
609-781: The functionality of the inbuilt electronics. Limiting SFP+ modules include a signal amplifier to re-shape the (degraded) received signal whereas linear ones do not. Linear modules are mainly used with the low bandwidth standards such as 10GBASE-LRM ; otherwise, limiting modules are preferred. SFP28 is a 25 Gbit/s interface which evolved from the 100 Gigabit Ethernet interface which is typically implemented with 4 by 25 Gbit/s data lanes. Identical in mechanical dimensions to SFP and SFP+, SFP28 implements one 28 Gbit/s lane accommodating 25 Gbit/s of data with encoding overhead. SFP28 modules exist supporting single- or multi-mode fiber connections, active optical cable and direct attach copper. The compact small form-factor pluggable ( cSFP )
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#1732801174898638-603: The later SFP28 iteration, introduced in 2014, is designed for speeds of 25 Gbit/s . A slightly larger sibling is the four-lane Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable ( QSFP ). The additional lanes allow for speeds 4 times their corresponding SFP. In 2014, the QSFP28 variant was published allowing speeds up to 100 Gbit/s . In 2019, the closely related QSFP56 was standardized doubling the top speeds to 200 Gbit/s with products already selling from major vendors. There are inexpensive adapters allowing SFP transceivers to be placed in
667-689: The major difference between 8 and 16 Gbit/s Fibre Channel is the encoding method. The 64b/66b encoding used for 16 Gbit/s is a more efficient encoding mechanism than 8b/10b used for 8 Gbit/s , and allows for the data rate to double without doubling the line rate. 16GFC doesn't really use 16 Gbit/s signaling anywhere. It uses a 14. 025 Gbit/s line rate to achieve twice the throughput of 8GFC. SFP+ also introduces direct attach for connecting two SFP+ ports without dedicated transceivers. Direct attach cables (DAC) exist in passive (up to 7 m), active (up to 15 m), and active optical (AOC, up to 100 m) variants. 10 Gbit/s SFP+ modules are exactly
696-528: The same dimensions as regular SFPs, allowing the equipment manufacturer to re-use existing physical designs for 24 and 48-port switches and modular line cards . In comparison to earlier XENPAK or XFP modules, SFP+ modules leave more circuitry to be implemented on the host board instead of inside the module. Through the use of an active electronic adapter, SFP+ modules may be used in older equipment with XENPAK ports and X2 ports. SFP+ modules can be described as limiting or linear types; this describes
725-771: The use of a single QSFP+ port as four independent 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections, greatly increasing port density. For example, a typical 24-port QSFP+ 1U switch would be able to service 96x10GbE connections. There also exist fanout cables to adapt a single QSFP28 port to four independent 25 Gigabit Ethernet SFP28 ports (QSFP28-to-4×SFP28) as well as cables to adapt a single QSFP56 port to four independent 50 Gigabit Ethernet SFP56 ports (QSFP56-to-4×SFP56). SFP sockets are found in Ethernet switches , routers, firewalls and network interface cards . They are used in Fibre Channel host adapters and storage equipment. Because of their low cost, low profile, and ability to provide
754-418: The vendor's own modules. Third-party SFP manufacturers have introduced SFPs with EEPROMs which may be programmed to match any vendor ID. Black Black Blue SFP transceivers are right-handed : From their perspective, they transmit on the right and receive on the left. When looking into the optical connectors, transmission comes from the left and reception is on the right. The SFP transceiver contains
783-456: Was first published on May 9, 2006, and version 4.1 was published on July 6, 2009. SFP+ supports 8 Gbit/s Fibre Channel , 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Optical Transport Network standard OTU2. It is a popular industry format supported by many network component vendors. Although the SFP+ standard does not include mention of 16 Gbit/s Fibre Channel, it can be used at this speed. Besides the data rate,
812-440: Was on July 19, 2002. It was adopted on March 3, 2003, and updated with minor updates through August 31, 2005. The chair of the XFP group was Robert Snively of Brocade Communications Systems , and technical editor was Ali Ghiasi of Broadcom . The organization's web site was maintained until 2009. The XFI electrical interface specification is a 10 gigabit per second chip-to-chip electrical interface specification defined as part of
841-545: Was smaller than the XENPAK form-factor which had been published earlier (by almost a year). Some vendors supported both, or the XENPAK follow-ons called XPAK and X2 . Small form-factor pluggable transceiver Small Form-factor Pluggable ( SFP ) is a compact, hot-pluggable network interface module format used for both telecommunication and data communications applications. An SFP interface on networking hardware
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