W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. (Gore), a provider of diverse, high-performance solutions for the consumer, industrial, electronic and medical markets, has reportedly announced the new low-profile QSFP direct attach copper cable assembly that is “fiber-like” in size.

 

The new Low-Profile Copper Cable comes with a diameter of 0.170” for a 4x channel, 8-pair cable, with 37 percent cross-section savings. It is useful in high-performance computing applications, where a large percentage of high-density port-count interconnects are 2 meters or less (e.g., in top-of-the-rack switching installations).

 

According to the company, this new cable fulfills the requirement of dense, higher-port-count switch installations with reliable interconnect for high-performance computing (HPC). Company offered this new cable to major switch vendors and computing OEMs for testing over the last 6-8 months and was tested for compliance and interoperability in spring 2009.

 

This Low-Profile Copper Cable was developed for GORE QSFP Assemblies and InfiniBand QDR applications. QSFP Copper Cable Assemblies are designed for Infiniband 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 40 Gigabit Ethernet applications to improve signal reliability at speeds over 10 Gbps per channel - the standard Infiniband QDR data rate.

 

Russ Hornung, product manager at Gore, said: “The size and flexibility of this low-profile cable have been very positively received. The data centers and OEMs continue to reinforce that the reduction in cable mass provides greater air flow for more efficient cooling which results in increased electronic efficiencies and reduced failures; this is a benefit that is sometimes overlooked.” 

Low-Profile Cable with reduced bend radius and smaller diameter offers aggressive routing as well as cleaner dressing of the cables in high-performance computing (HPC) environments. This new cable does not interfere with the closing of cabinet doors in dense environments, says the company.

 

Chris Ericksen, application engineer at Gore, said: “Gore continues to add value through innovation. We see the consistency and extremely low dielectric loss-tangent (0.0004) of ePTFE having a more pronounced impact, when compared to conductor loss, as data rates increase and support frequencies move further into the microwave range. Gore’s history of “Best-in Class” microwave cables is very evident and measurable in the high speed digital world.”