Reaching beyond the standard 100-meter mark with robust cable is crucial for the accelerated adoption of 10GBASE-T technology. While others have aimed for 100 meters, the Aquantia solution has set a new performance record. This extra headroom enhances the end-user experience and facilitates design for OEM systems. End users benefit from the added headroom, as it allows for greater flexibility in connectors, cable bending, and other aspects. It also helps OEMs simplify their design and reduce costs by enabling magnetic generics, fewer PCB layers, and improved overall reliability.

Aquantia has partnered with Siemon to test its 40nm 10GBASE-T PHY chips over the wide range of copper cabling typically deployed in enterprises and data centers. Testing was conducted over cable configurations exceeding the IEEE 802.3an standard of 55 meters in Category 6 and 100 meters in Cat 6A and Cat 7, pushing to the maximum insertion loss defined by TIA standards. The tests demonstrated flawless performance of the Aquantia 40nm 10GBASE-T PHY over a 120-meter Siemon Z-MAX Category 6A channel—the longest distance achieved to date in the 10 Gigabit Ethernet over copper industry.
“For Aquantia, extending the transmission distance of high-performance Category 6A cabling to 120 meters is the ultimate proof of the robustness and superiority of its 10GBASE-T architecture and its effective implementation on 40nm,” says John Siemon, Chief Technology Officer at Siemon. “This is further confirmation of the maturity of the 10GBASE-T industry and Aquantia’s leadership as a top silicon provider. We are excited to be working with Aquantia. Instead of shortening copper cabling distances in data centers and falling further behind industry standard requirements, we are extending them while offering end users greater design flexibility,” says Siemon.

Aquantia's 40nm devices are manufactured using its patented mixed-mode signal processing architecture, which features both Analog Front End (AFE) simplification and reduced size and complexity of the chip's digital section by performing advanced signal processing in analog format. The end result is lower power consumption and lower cost compared to competing approaches. According to Ramin Shirani, Vice President of Engineering at Aquantia, “The superior linearity of our AFE, along with our MMSP architecture, are the cornerstones of our product offering and the reasons for this latest achievement. We are already working to break our own record, as we have done in previous generations.”
Aquantia is currently developing its complete portfolio of 40nm 10GBASE-T PHYs, ranging from quad-port to single-port configurations:
• AQ 1401 Quad-Port
10GBASE-T, for high-density Top-of-Rack (ToR) and chassis-based switches.
• Quad-port AQ 1202 10GBASE-T for new server motherboard LAN applications and NICs, CNAs, and HBAs.
• Single-port AQ 1103 10GBASE-T for high-end single-port PC applications and X2 modules.
Faraj Aalaei, President and CEO of Aquantia, comments: “We are seeing significant momentum in the 10GBASE-T market with OEM switches and servers, following our recent achievements in the 40nm generation. A strong track record of innovation, expertise, and a constant pursuit of the highest performance are the driving forces behind this success.”