Rebranded Ethernet Technology Consortium Announces 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Specification

guest · Apr 10, 2020

Rebranded Ethernet Technology Consortium Unveils 800 Gigabit Ethernet
April 9, 2020
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1571...ology-consortium-unveils-800-gigabit-ethernet

With an increasing demand for networking speed and throughput performance within the datacenter and high performance computing clusters, the newly rebranded Ethernet Technology Consortium has announced a new 800 Gigabit Ethernet technology. Based upon many of the existing technologies that power contemporary 400 Gigabit Ethernet, the 800GBASE-R standard is looking to double performance once again, to feed ever-hungrier datacenters.

The recently-finalized standard comes from the Ethernet Technology Consortium, the non-IEEE, tech industry-backed consortium formerly known as the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium.
Some of the biggest contributors and supporters of the ETC include Broadcom, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft, with more than 40 companies listed as integrators of its work.

As for their new 800 Gigabit Ethernet standard, at a high level 800GbE can be thought of as essentially a wider version of 400GbE. The standard is primarily based around using existing 106.25G lanes, which were pioneered for 400GbE, but doubling the number of total lanes from 4 to 8.
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Diving in, the new 800GBASE-R specification defines a new Media Access Control (MAC) and a Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS), which in turn is built on top of two 400 GbE 2xClause PCS's to create a single MAC which operates at a combined 800 Gb/s. Each 400 GbE PCS uses 4 x 106.25 GbE lanes, which when doubled brings the total to eight lanes, which has been used to create the new 800 GbE standard.

Focusing on the MAC itself, the ETC claims that 800 Gb Ethernet will inherit all of the previous attributes of the 400 GbE standard, with full-duplex support between two terminals, and with a minimum interpacket gap of 8-bit times.
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There's no information when we might see 800GbE in products, but as its largely based on existing technology, it should be a relatively short wait by datacenter networking standards. Though datacenter operators will probably have to pay for the luxury; with even a Cisco Nexus 400 GbE 16-port switch costing upwards of $11,000, we don't expect 800GbE to come cheap.
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Press Release: 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium Rebrands to Ethernet Technology Consortium; Announces 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Specification
800 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Specification (PDF): https://ethernettechnologyconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/800G-Specification_r1.0.pdf

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Rebranded Ethernet Technology Consortium Announces 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Specification

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