- New Alaska®
A 1.6T PAM4 DSP for copper interconnects is built on
Marvell industry-leading 5nm PAM4 technology.
- Addresses the growing need for 200G/lane I/O to handle AI
accelerator and GPU bandwidth demands.
- Enables 1.6T short-reach copper connectivity within
accelerated compute racks.
SANTA CLARA,
Calif., June 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Marvell
Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in data infrastructure
semiconductor solutions, today introduced the Marvell®
Alaska® A 1.6T
PAM4 DSP for active electrical cables (AECs), the industry's first
1.6 Tbps AEC DSP to address emerging 200G/lane-based accelerated
infrastructure architectures. Artificial intelligence (AI) and
machine learning (ML) applications are driving greater connectivity
bandwidth requirements between AI accelerators, server to
top-of-rack links and switch-to-switch interconnects within data
center racks. The latest addition to the Alaska A family is built
on 5nm process and leverages industry-leading Marvell PAM4 DSP
technology to enable short-reach copper interconnect solutions that
meet the growing bandwidth requirements of accelerated
infrastructure.
According to 650 Group, the AEC silicon market is
expected to grow at 64% per year to reach $1
billion by 2028 with DSPs powering AECs to reach nearly 40
million units per year1. "AI is driving the need for
short-reach copper connectivity at 1.6T," said Alan Weckel, 650 co-founder. "Marvell leadership
is clear with the introduction of its Alaska 1.6T AEC DSP, which continues the
company's history of delivering best-in-class PAM DSPs that enable
cable vendors to offer interconnect solutions optimized for the
different cloud AI architectures."
Copper PAM4 DSP Technology for Accelerated
Infrastructure
The short-reach copper connections between AI
accelerators, server to top-of-rack links and switch-to-switch
interconnects within a rack have traditionally been addressed by
direct attached cable (DAC). As speeds increase to 200G/lane, the
distance over which passive DACs can be used declines
significantly. AECs use PAM4 DSPs to retime the signal to extend
the reach of copper interconnects and enable thinner cables within
high-density data center racks.
AECs are increasingly being used in a wide
variety of applications, including as part of the AI server compute
fabric. Historically, most AI server designs used copper trace
connections on printed circuit boards to connect accelerators to
one another. Now, to address larger AI workloads, an increasing
number of accelerators per AI server are needed, resulting in the
distribution of accelerators across multiple boards within the rack
that are connected using copper cables. As the speed of the
accelerator-to-accelerator interconnects transitions to 200G/lane
signaling, AECs will play a crucial role in enabling this
connectivity.
The new Alaska A device leverages over a
decade of Marvell PAM4 leadership. The Alaska A 1.6T DSP features
eight 200 Gbps SerDes lanes to the host device and eight 200 Gbps
SerDes lanes to the copper cable. The industry-leading equalization
engine built into the Alaska A 1.6T DSP enables cable reaches of
greater than three meters, addressing the reach requirements for
inside-the-rack copper connections. The Alaska A 1.6T DSP is
designed for next-generation accelerated infrastructure with 200
Gbps I/O interfaces on AI accelerators, GPUs, NICs and
switches.
Key features of the Alaska A 1.6T AEC DSP
include:
- Proven DSP-based 200G PAM4 SerDes
- Advanced digital equalizer with Feed Forward (FFE), Decision
Feedback (DFE) and Maximum Likelihood Sequence Detection
(MLSD)
- Greater than 3-meter reach at 200G/lane
- 200 Gbps per lane electrical line-side interface
- Optimized for QSFP-DD and OSFP form factors
- Retiming and gearboxing support
- Cable reference design for 1.6T AECs
- SDK support for advanced telemetry and diagnostics
"The next wave of AI clusters will need 200 Gbps
signaling to handle the bandwidth requirements of generative AI and
large language models," said Venu Balasubramonian, vice
president of product marketing, Connectivity Business Unit, at
Marvell. "The newest addition to our Alaska A product line extends
our leadership in delivering PAM4 DSP technology for short-reach
copper connectivity for cloud AI clusters."
Industry-Leading Cable Manufacturer
Support
"Our portfolio of interconnect solutions is designed
to meet critical performance, efficiency and reliability
requirements for next-generation infrastructure architectures. With
the Marvell Alaska A 1.6T PAM4 AEC DSP we can offer an advanced AEC
copper interconnect solution for 200G/lane connectivity that brings
price-performance and power consumption advantages for high-density
AI clusters and data-center infrastructure," said Brian Kirk, group CTO, High Speed Products, at
Amphenol Communications Solutions.
"Molex's AEC portfolio offers a complete solution
for our customers' cloud interconnect architectures. As speeds
continue to rise driven by AI and ML, copper cable reach becomes
very challenging for next-generation AI platforms. The Marvell
Alaska A 1.6T AEC DSP enables us to deliver AEC solutions to meet
the copper cable reach requirements at 200G/lane," said
Jairo Guerrero, vice president and
general manager, Copper Solutions, at Molex.
"200G/lane will be the speed of choice for next
generation AI data centers, with copper cables playing a critical
role for short reach intra-rack connectivity. The combination of
the Marvell Alaska A 1.6T PAM4 AEC DSP with TE's advanced cabling
solutions will deliver the bandwidth needed for next-generation,
intra-rack AI copper interconnects," said Vishwas Rao, vice president of product
management at TE Connectivity.
Availability
Leading cable partners will sample Alaska A 1.6T
PAM4 DSP-based active electrical cables in August.
About Marvell
To deliver the data
infrastructure technology that connects the world, we're building
solutions on the most powerful foundation: our partnerships with
our customers. Trusted by the world's leading technology companies
for over 25 years, we move, store, process and secure the world's
data with semiconductor solutions designed for our customers'
current needs and future ambitions. Through a process of deep
collaboration and transparency, we're ultimately changing the way
tomorrow's enterprise, cloud, automotive, and carrier architectures
transform—for the better.
Footnote 1: 650 Group: AEC Quarterly Market and
Long-Term Forecast Report, June
2024.
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