A small chip mounted in the plug housing could enable copper high-speed data cables to be thinner, lighter, and run further, its inventor has claimed.
Quellan said that the chip, which reduces analogue noise on the line, could be used in a range of high-speed cables, including InfiniBand, SAS, PCI-Express and 10Gig Ethernet.
It has already signed U.S. cable maker WL Gore as a customer for it, and demonstrated cables using it at a recent conference on high-performance computing.
The chip, called Q:Active, turns a passive cable into an active one, said Quellan chairman and CEO Tony Stelliga. He added that, unusually for a modern active circuit, it uses an analogue processor rather than digital.
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