Terabit Ethernet

Facebook and Google, among other companies, have expressed a need for TbE.^[10] While a speed of 400 Gbit/s is achievable with existing technology, 1 Tbit/s (1000 Gbit/s) would require different technology.^[2][11] Accordingly, at the IEEE Industry Connections Higher Speed Ethernet Consensus group meeting in September 2012, 400 GbE was chosen as the next generation goal.^[2] Additional 200 GbE objectives were added in January 2016.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) attracted help from Agilent Technologies, Google, Intel, Rockwell Collins, and Verizon Communications to help with research into next generation Ethernet.^[12]

As of early 2016, chassis/modular based core router platforms from Cisco, Juniper and other major manufacturers support 400 Gbit/s full duplex data rates per slot. One, two and four port 100 GbE and one port 400 GbE line cards are presently available. As of early 2019, 200 GbE line cards became available after 802.3cd standard ratification.^[13][14] In 2020 the Ethernet Technology Consortium announced a specification for 800 Gigabit Ethernet.^[15]

200G Ethernet uses PAM4 signaling which allows 2 bits to be transmitted per clock cycle, but at a higher implementation cost.^[16] Cisco introduced an 800G Ethernet switch in 2022.^[17] In 2024, Nokia routers with 800G Ethernet were deployed.^[18]

The IEEE formed the "IEEE 802.3 Industry Connections Ethernet Bandwidth Assessment Ad Hoc", to investigate the business needs for short and long term bandwidth requirements.^[19][20][21]

IEEE 802.3's "400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group" started working on the 400 Gbit/s generation standard in March 2013.^[22] Results from the study group were published and approved on March 27, 2014. Subsequently, the IEEE 802.3bs Task Force^[23] started working to provide physical layer specifications for several link distances.^[24]

The IEEE 802.3bs standard was approved on December 6, 2017^[4].

The IEEE 802.3cd standard was approved on December 5, 2018.

The IEEE 802.3cn standard was approved on December 20, 2019.

The IEEE 802.3cm standard was approved on January 30, 2020.

The IEEE 802.3cu standard was approved on February 11, 2021.

The IEEE 802.3ck and 802.3db standards were approved on September 21, 2022.

In November 2022 the IEEE 802.3df project objectives were split in two, with 1.6T and 200G/lane work being moved to the new IEEE 802.3dj project

• Original IEEE P802.3df Objectives
• Updated IEEE P802.3df Objectives to reduce scope to 800G Ethernet using 100G physical lanes
• IEEE P802.3dj Objectives for 1.6 Tbit/s Ethernet and PHYs that employ 200 Gbit/s lanes
• IEEE P802.3dj Objectives updated in May 2023 to include 200G/lane backplane Ethernet
• IEEE P802.3dj Objectives updated in January 2024 to include additional PHY types

The IEEE 802.3df standard was approved on February 16, 2024.

Like all speeds since 10 Gigabit Ethernet, the standards support only full-duplex operation. Other objectives include:^[24]

1. Preserve the Ethernet frame format utilizing the Ethernet MAC
2. Preserve minimum and maximum frame size of current Ethernet standard
3. Support a bit error ratio (BER) of 10⁻¹³, which is an improvement over the 10⁻¹² BER that was specified for 10GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE.
4. Support for OTN (transport of Ethernet across optical transport networks), and optional support for Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE).

Define physical layer specifications supporting:^[24]

• 400 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • at least 100 m over multi-mode fiber (400GBASE-SR16) using 16 parallel strands of fiber each at 25 Gbit/s^[25][26]
  • at least 500 m over single-mode fiber (400GBASE-DR4) using 4 parallel strands of fiber each at 100 Gbit/s^[27][28]
  • at least 2 km over single-mode fiber (400GBASE-FR8) using 8 parallel wavelengths (CWDM) each at 50 Gbit/s^[27][29][30]
  • at least 10 km over single-mode fiber (400GBASE-LR8) using 8 parallel wavelengths (CWDM) each at 50 Gbit/s^[27][30][31]
  • 8 and 16 lane chip-to-chip/chip-to-module electrical interfaces (400GAUI-8 and 400GAUI-16)
• 200 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • at least 500 m over single-mode fiber (200GBASE-DR4) using 4 parallel strands of fiber each at 50 Gbit/s^[32][33]
  • at least 2 km over single-mode fiber (200GBASE-FR4) using 4 parallel wavelengths (CWDM) each at 50 Gbit/s^[1][33]
  • at least 10 km over single-mode fiber (200GBASE-LR4) using 4 parallel wavelengths (CWDM) each at 50 Gbit/s^[1][33]
  • 4 or 8 lane chip-to-chip/chip-to-module electrical interfaces (200GAUI-4 and 200GAUI-8)

• Define four-lane 200 Gbit/s PHYs for operation over:
  • copper twin-axial cables with lengths up to at least 3 m (200GBASE-CR4).
  • printed circuit board backplane with a total channel insertion loss of ≤ 30 dB at 13.28125 GHz (200GBASE-KR4).
• Define 200 Gbit/s PHYs for operation over MMF with lengths up to at least 100 m (200GBASE-SR4).

• 200 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Define a two-lane 200 Gbit/s Attachment Unit interface (AUI) for chip-to-module applications, compatible with PMDs based on 100 Gbit/s per lane optical signaling (200GAUI-2 C2M)
  • Define a two-lane 200 Gbit/s Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) for chip-to-chip applications (200GAUI-2 C2C)
  • Define a two-lane 200 Gbit/s PHY for operation over electrical backplanes an insertion loss ≤ 28 dB at 26.56 GHz (200GBASE-KR2)
  • Define a two-lane 200 Gbit/s PHY for operation over twin axial copper cables with lengths up to at least 2 m (200GBASE-CR2)
• 400 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Define a four-lane 400 Gbit/s Attachment Unit interface (AUI) for chip-to-module applications, compatible with PMDs based on 100 Gbit/s per lane optical signaling (400GAUI-4 C2M)
  • Define a four-lane 400 Gbit/s Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) for chip-to-chip applications (400GAUI-4 C2C)
  • Define a four-lane 400 Gbit/s PHY for operation over electrical backplanes an insertion loss ≤ 28 dB at 26.56 GHz (400GBASE-KR4)
  • Define a four-lane 400 Gbit/s PHY for operation over twin axial copper cables with lengths up to at least 2 m (400GBASE-CR4)

• 400 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Define a physical layer specification supporting 400 Gbit/s operation over 8 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 100 m (400GBASE-SR8)
  • Define a physical layer specification supporting 400 Gbit/s operation over 4 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 100 m (400GBASE-SR4.2)

• 200 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Provide a physical layer specification supporting 200 Gbit/s operation over four wavelengths capable of at least 40 km of SMF (200GBASE-ER4) ^[34]
• 400 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Provide a physical layer specification supporting 400 Gbit/s operation over eight wavelengths capable of at least 40 km of SMF (400GBASE-ER8)^[34]

• Define a four-wavelength 400 Gbit/s PHY for operation over SMF with lengths up to at least 2 km (400GBASE-FR4)
• Define a four-wavelength 400 Gbit/s PHY for operation over SMF with lengths up to at least 6 km (400GBASE-LR4-6) ^[35]

• Provide a physical layer specification supporting 400 Gbit/s operation on a single wavelength capable of at least 80 km over a DWDM system (400GBASE-ZR)^[36] Dual polarization 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation (DP-16QAM) with coherent detection is proposed.^[37]

• 200 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Define a physical layer specification that supports 200 Gbit/s operation over 2 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 50 m (200GBASE-VR2)
  • Define a physical layer specification that supports 200 Gbit/s operation over 2 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 100 m (200GBASE-SR2)
• 400 Gbit/s Ethernet
  • Define a physical layer specification that supports 400 Gbit/s operation over 4 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 50 m (400GBASE-VR4)
  • Define a physical layer specification that supports 400 Gbit/s operation over 4 pairs of MMF with lengths up to at least 100 m (400GBASE-SR4)

'IEEE P802.3db 100 Gb/s, 200 Gb/s, and 400 Gb/s Short Reach Fiber Task Force'

• Adds 800G Ethernet rate and specifies port types using existing 100G per lane technology

IEEE P802.3df Objectives for 800 Gbit/s Ethernet and 400G and 800G PHYs using 100 Gbit/s lanes

• Adds 1.6T Ethernet rate and specifies port types using new 200G per lane technology

IEEE P802.3dj Objectives for 1.6 Tbit/s Ethernet and 200G, 400G 800 Gb/s, and 1.6 Tb/s PHYs using 200 Gbit/s lanes

• Ethernet Alliance
• Interconnect bottleneck
• Fiber-optic cable
• Optical communication
• Parallel optical interface

• Chris Jablonski. "Researchers to develop 1 Terabit Ethernet by 2015". ZD Net. Archived from the original on October 29, 2010. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
• Iljitsch van Beijnum (August 2011). "Speed matters: how Ethernet went from 3 Mbps to 100 Gbps... and beyond". Ars Technica. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
• Rick Merritt (May 9, 2011). "IEEE Looks beyond 100G Ethernet". The Cutting Edge. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
• Stephen Lawson (February 2, 2010). "Facebook Sees Need for Terabit Ethernet". PC World. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
• IEEE Reports
  • "100 gigabit Ethernet and beyond". IEEE Optical Communications: Design, Technologies, and Applications. March 2010. doi:10.1109/MCOM.2010.5434372. ISSN 0163-6804.
  • Elby, Stuart (July 2011). "The drive towards Terabit Ethernet". 2011 IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topical Meeting Series. pp. 104–105. doi:10.1109/PHOSST.2011.6000067. ISBN 978-1-4244-5730-4. S2CID 9077455.
  • Detwiler, Thomas; Stark, Andrew; Basch, Bert; Ralph, Stephen E. (July 2011). "DQPSK for Terabit Ethernet in the 1310 nm band". 2011 IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topical Meeting Series. pp. 143–144. doi:10.1109/PHOSST.2011.6000087. ISBN 978-1-4244-5730-4. S2CID 44199212.

• West, John (April 3, 2009). "Terabit Ethernet on the way". insideHPC.
• Mellor, Chris (February 15, 2009). "Terabit Ethernet possibilities". The Register.
• Wang, Brian (April 24, 2008). "Terabit Ethernet around 2015".
• Duffy, Jim (April 20, 2009). "100 Gigabit Ethernet: Bridge to Terabit Ethernet". Network World. Archived from the original on May 14, 2010.
• Fleishman, Glenn (February 13, 2009). "Terabit Ethernet becomes a photonic possibility". Ars Technica. Condé Nast.
• "IEEE GET Program - GET 802(R) Standards". IEEE Standards Association.