Cisco and NVIDIA Plan Open 400G Optics Specification

Cisco Systems, Inc. introduced new networking silicon, systems and optical technology for AI infrastructure, the company said in a press release. Cisco and NVIDIA plan to develop an open industry specification for the Ultra Dense Small Form Factor Pluggable optical module, which will support 400 gigabits per second per lane.

Cisco said the proposed module will provide four times the bandwidth density and 1.3 times the power efficiency of optics supporting 200 gigabits per second per lane. The companies plan to develop the specification through a community led multisource project.

Cisco also introduced the Silicon One G302, a 51.2 terabit per second switch chip with 200G SerDes for top of rack systems. It supports 1.6T optics and direct to chip liquid cooling, with shipments planned before the end of 2026. Cisco said its first systems using the 102.4 terabit per second G300 chip are now shipping to customers.

Systems using the Silicon One P200 are now operating in production at Microsoft and Alibaba Group. Alibaba paired the chip with its Quantum Cat routers and the SONiC operating system, while Microsoft is using P200 systems for cloud and computing services.