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Members of the IEEE have outlined the objectives for 200 Gigabit Ethernet physical medium dependents (PMDs), which will run alongside plans to work towards 50 and 400 Gigabit.
The move follows on from a meeting in January, where attendees decided to vote on a proposal to tie down how they will work to reach these objectives.
Reports suggest the 400 Gigabit Ethernet group will be play a central role in developing specifications for 2 km and 10 km applications of 200 Gigabit Ethernet.
Each PMD is expected to utilise four optical lanes of 50 Gbps, as well as an electrical interface called CCAUI, which is also set to be specified.
Addressing precisely what standardisation efforts are needed for achieving 50 as well as 200 Gigabit Ethernet are still subject to final approvals, which reports suggest will come in May.
John D'Ambrosia, chairman of the Ethernet Alliance and senior principal engineer, IP standards, at Huawei Technologies, told Lightwave that the efforts for specification were likely to build on the current work done by the IEEE to specify 50-Gbps electrical and optical lanes.
He added that responsibility for single-mode specifications was therefore likely to come under the EEE P802.3bs Task Force on 400 Gigabit Ethernet (400GbE), before going to state that the adoption of PAM-4 for electrical interfaces in the 400GbE project, was likey to lead it being used as a modulation format.
Using PSM4 is also likely to be a strong part of the approach for 500 m over single-mode fibre, although the development of a specification based on two 100-Gbps lanes the short-reach 4x100G PMD set to be used as part of the 400GbE specification set, is reportedly unlikely.
When it comes to the multimode side of things, the new task force will be entering largely untrodden ground when it comes 200 Gbps.
Meanwhile, the multimode version of 400GbE is based on 25-Gbps electrical and optical lanes, which will push 50 Gbps across multimode fibre.
Experts have suggested there will be a some notable challenges in achieving the new standards, but the Ethernet Alliance has already laid out its own goals for the coming year.
In a recent press release, it said: "As the Ethernet Alliance celebrates its 10th anniversary, it’s interesting to note how Ethernet’s pace has accelerated during the last decade – Ethernet is currently standardising more interfaces than exist today. Beyond adding six new speeds in addition to six existing speeds, IEEE 802.3 is standardising new interfaces ranging from fibre optics to backplanes for each of these speeds.”
