Marvell Technology Inc. has expanded its connectivity portfolio with additional active copper cable (ACC) linear equalizers targeted at AI data centers.
Analog ACC devices integrate a signal equalizer for a longer reach than passive direct attach copper (DAC) cables while adding minimal latency, Marvell said. The analog devices are also cheaper than digital alternatives, the company claims.
The Marvell ACC linear equalizers support 800G and 1.6T copper interconnects and expands the Marvell scale-up interconnect portfolio — chipsets for active electrical cables (AEC) and active optical cables (AOC).
Marvell said these ACC linear equalizers are needed due to increasing scale and complexity of AI workloads that are driving growth in data center bandwidth. Copper as a cable base for in-rack scale-up interconnects is popular due to low cost and ease of deployment. As bandwidth and cable gauge requirements continue to rise, signal transmission performance of other technologies is limited. The ACC linear equalizers solve this challenge, according to Marvell.
“Offering a full complement of ACC, AEC and AOC silicon technologies, Marvell is unique in the scale-up interconnect landscape, providing customers with a full range of solutions to meet their individual requirements,” said Xi Wang, senior VP and GM of the Connectivity Business Unit at Marvell. “We are excited to work with our ecosystem of cable OEM partners and system vendors to provide end customers with high-performance, in-rack connectivity solutions to handle their most advanced AI workloads.”
