The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium dedicated to the continued success and advancement of Ethernet technologies, today announced the agenda for its upcoming flagship Technology Exploration Forum (TEF) event. TEF 2021: The Road Ahead will feature daily webinars at 1 p.m. Pacific/4 p.m. Eastern Jan. 25-29 and is open to the global Ethernet community. At the center of the conversation will be the tradeoffs, use cases and technology challenges surrounding selection of the next Ethernet rate. To register, please visit TEF 2021: The Road Ahead.

“Clear trends toward cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, corporate mandates to work from home, as well as new workloads such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and streaming gaming, are combining to drive ever-increasing traffic loads - both machine to machine and to the end user,” said Peter Jones, chair, Ethernet Alliance. “The Technology Exploration Forum is an opportunity for individuals to present and share their ideas with component vendors, system vendors and end users across the broad Ethernet Alliance membership and beyond. Together, these constituencies provide a diverse set of backgrounds, ensuring lively discussion and debate for TEF 2021.”

The IEEE 802.3bs™ standard, completed in 2017, leveraged state-of-the-art 50 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) per lane serializer/deserializer (SerDes) technology with new eight-lane front panel pluggable modules to enable 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). With the IEEE P802.3ck™ development project now in mid-flight to standardize 100Gb/s per lane electrical signaling, such eight-lane module form factors could be repurposed to enable an 800GbE interface. Although this seems a logical next step, would a factor-of-two increase to 800 GbE provide enough of a rate increase to satisfy end-user demand? Or, given that the last major speed transition was a factor of four, from 100GbE to 400GbE, would 1.6 Terabit Ethernet (TbE) be a more prudent next Ethernet rate? Or will the TEF discussion bring yet another perspective to be considered?

TEF 2021 will bring together key experts from both end users and manufacturers to discuss and debate such issues, with the goal of understanding requirements across Ethernet’s vast application horizon and building consensus. Scheduled webinar sessions for TEF 2021 include:

  • Market Need – The Next Ethernet Rate
  • New Applications Driving Higher Bandwidths
  • Beyond 100G Electrical
  • Technical Feasibility: Next Generation Optical Interfaces
  • Test & Measurement

To learn more about registration and sponsorship opportunities for the event, please visit TEF 2021: The Road Ahead.

For more information about the Ethernet Alliance, please visit http://www.ethernetalliance.org, follow @EthernetAllianc on Twitter, visit its Facebook page, or follow its LinkedIn company page.

About the Ethernet Alliance

The Ethernet Alliance is a global consortium that includes system and component vendors, industry experts, and university and government professionals who are committed to the continued success and expansion of Ethernet technology. The Ethernet Alliance takes Ethernet standards to market by supporting activities that span from incubation of new Ethernet technologies to interoperability demonstrations and education. The organization’s plans for 2021 may be found on the Events page of its website.