what is SFP transceiver - Exhibition

what is SFP transceiver

In order to satisfy some projects, whose telecom equipment or networking device needs SFP transceiver requirement. FOCC now is offering full series of SFP/SFP+ solution:

FOCC-SFPXFP-series-compressor-e1435823195597

FOT SFP/SFP+ solution series

For better sharing SFP transceiver modules, FOT blog is collecting three different definition knowledge of this hot-pluggable transceiver (from Internet).

No. 1 Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Definition

Small form-factor pluggable (SFP) is a specification for a new generation of optical modular transceivers. The devices are designed for use with small form factor (SFF) connectors, and offer high speed and physical compactness. They are hot-swappable.

SFP transceivers are expected to perform at data speeds of up to five gigabits per second (5 Gbps), and possibly higher. Because SFP modules can be easily interchanged, electro-optical or fiber optic networks can be upgraded and maintained more conveniently than has been the case with traditional soldered-in modules. Rather than replacing an entire circuit board containing several soldered-in modules, a single module can be removed and replaced for repair or upgrading. This can result in a substantial cost savings, both in maintenance and in upgrading efforts.

Several companies have formed a consortium supporting the use of SFP transceivers to meet their common objectives of broad bandwidth, small physical size and mass, and ease of removal and replacement.

PX20++ EPON OLT SFP

Also see small form factor (SFF) and gigabit interface converter (GBIC).

comment:
SFP+ is a variant of the SFP, hot-pluggable, small-footprint, serial-to-serial, multi-rate optical transceiver for 8.5GbE to 11GbE data communications and storage-area network (SAN) applications

No. 2 Definition of: SFP

(Small Form-factor Pluggable) A small transceiver that plugs into the SFP port of a network switch and connects to Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) optical fiber cables at the other end. Superseding the GBIC transceiver, SFP modules are also called “mini-GBIC” due to their smaller size. By choosing the appropriate SFP module, the same electrical port on the switch can connect to fibers of different types (multimode or singlemode) and different wavelengths. If the fiber is upgraded, the SFP module is replaced.

The SFP converts the serial electrical signals to serial optical signals and vice versa. SFP modules are hot swappable and contain ID and system information for the switch.

Combo SFP Ports
Combo ports are paired with Ethernet ports. For example, if an SFP transceiver is plugged into SFP port 24, then Ethernet port 24 is disabled even if a cable is plugged in.

XFP and SFP+ for 10 Gigabits
Larger than SFP, XFP transceivers were the first to handle 10 Gigabit Ethernet optical lines, because SFP supported only up to 4.25 Gbps. The same module size as SFP, SFP+ was later introduced to handle 10 Gbps but required more circuitry in the host device. As a result, SFP+ ports are mostly found in plug-in cards for servers and enterprise switches. See transceiver and GBIC.

SFP+ and XFP Modules
SFP Gigabit Ethernet and SFP+ 10 Gigabit Ethernet transceivers are the same size.

SFP and XFP

In this view from the optical fiber side, the SFP+ module (left) is obviously narrower and shorter than the XFP module on the right. (Image courtesy of Cisco Systems, Inc.)

No. 3 Definition – What does Small Form-Factor Pluggable Transceiver (SFP) mean?

A small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver is a compact, hot-swappable, input/output transceiver used in data communication and telecommunications networks. SFP interfaces between communication devices like switches, routers and fiber optic cables, and performs conversions between optical and electrical signals. SFP transceivers support communications standards including synchronous optical networking (SONET)/synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), gigabit ethernet and fiber channel. They also allow the transport of fast Ethernet and gigabit Ethernet LAN packets over time-division-multiplexing-based WANs, as well as the transmission of E1/T1 streams over packet-switched networks.

SFP Definition

SFP is also called a mini gigabit interface converter (GBIC) because its function is similar to the GBIC transceiver but with much smaller dimensions.

The SFP transceiver is specified by the SFP Transceiver Multisource Agreement (MSA), which was developed and is followed by different transceiver manufacturers.

SFP Transceivers have a wide range of detachable interfaces to multimode/single-mode fiber optics, which allows users to select the appropriate transceiver according to the required optical range for the network.

SFP transceivers are also available with copper cable interfaces, which allows a host device designed primarily for optical fiber communications to also communicate over unshielded twisted pair networking cables. Modern optical SFP transceivers support digital diagnostics monitoring (DDM) functions, also known as digital optical monitoring (DOM). This feature gives users the ability to monitor the real-time parameters of SFP, such as optical output power, optical input power, temperature, laser-bias current and transceiver supply voltage.