Active Optical Cables (AOC)

Amphenol is a leading innovator in the development and manufacturing of Active Optical Cables. With our global design teams, world class manufacturing and testing capabilities and cost effectiveness, Amphenol leads the way in high speed optical products.

Whether industry standard or application specific designs are required, Amphenol provides customers with products that enable performance at the leading edge of next generation interconnect. We offer a complete portfolio of high speed IO products for all of your needs.

Our Active Optical Products are designed for a wide range of applications, including data centers, HPC, telecom, and server and storage systems. We support Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Infiband, SAS, PCIe, and CPRI with data rates ranging from 12G to 400G.

What are Active Optical Cables?

Active Optical Cables (AOCs) are essentially transceiver products that are permanently embedded with fiber optic cables. They are used for applications with consistent, predictable link distancing. Active Optical Cables are used in multi-lane data communication and interconnect applications. AOC cables will accelerate storage, data, and high-performance computing.

Active Optical Cable Applications

AOC cables were developed as an alternative option to Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cables for increased distance. They are primarily used in datacenters and high-performance computing, where cables with speed and distance are necessary. Many businesses are relying on AOC cables as their uses outweigh copper cables.

Advantages of AOC Cables

Using AOC cables will boost performance in speed and distance compared to typical copper cables. With AOC cables, sizable amounts of data can be transferred rapidly across longer distances. As a result, the efficiency of computing data is increased.

The lighter, thinner cables avoid restriction in organization and storage. Unlike copper cables, AOC cables are not bulky and difficult to manage over longer distances. AOC cables can simplify a setup without power delivery issues or electromagnetic interference.

AOC vs DAC Cables

Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cables are twinax copper cables that connect ports within active equipment such as routers, switches, serves, or data storage in a data center. The most common DAC cables are ethernet connection cables that connect 10G ports to other 40G and 100G ports.

Passive/Active DAC cables differ from Active Optical Cables. DAC cables provide a direct connection between corresponding cable ends. Active Optical Cables also provide the same connection, but they overcome passive cable limitations. Active Optical Cables offer the best speed in optical products, and are used in a wider range of applications.

QSFP DD 200G Active Optic Cables

The Amphenol QSFP DD 200G Active Optical Cable is a high-density connector. The 8 channel lanes double the port density when compared to 100G QSFP28 AOC connectors. Amphenol's QSFP DD 200G AOC connectors provide up to 200Gb/s aggregate bandwidth, making them the ideal connector for higher capacity networks and data center applications.

QSFP28 Active Optical Cables

QSFP cables are 4 channel, small form factor fibre optic transceivers. More specifically, a QSFP28 cable is a hot-pluggable transceiver that is designed for 100G data rates. These AOC connectors are reliable, cost effective, power efficient, and ideal for high density signal transmission. QSFP28 active optical cables are typically used in data centers and high performance computing applications that require cable lengths of up to 100 meters.

Mini-SAS HD AOC Connectors

Mini-SAS HD AOC connectors are standard with SAS 2.1 and SAS 3.0 technology, as well as the SFF-8636 interface. These cables are primarily used for external enterprise applications, and will address all board connector and cabling applications of up to 100 meters. Mini-SAS HD AOC connectors give system architects complete control and a flexible range in order to meet IO system needs.

CXP2 AOC Connectors

Amphenol's CXP2 AOC cable offers advantages in data rate capacity, low latency, and scalability, which results in instant connectivity at higher speeds. These AOC cables are the ideal solution for high-performance computing and data applications. CXP2 AOC connectors use OM3 and OM4 fiber cables, and can maintain a bandwidth of up to 300Gb/s. The form factor of the CXP2 delivers some of the best performance among existing AOC connectors.