XENPAK is a standard for 10 Gb/s fibre optical transceiver modules.
Started in 2001 by Agere Systems (formerly Lucent) and Agilent Technologies, the standard is now supported by a number of well-known companies (such as Infineon Technologies, Intel, Nortel Networks and many more).
Those supporting companies worked out the XENPAK MSA (Multisource Agreement), which is publically available at http://www.xenpak.org/MSA.asp. The current release (XENPAK MSA R3.0) is available as pdf document.
The standard specifies mechanical (uniform form factor & size), electrical (4 lane XAUI - 70 pin SFP like interface) as well as management/control characteristics of the module and achieves IEEE Std 802.3ae 10 Gb/s Ethernet conformity.
The XENPAK page states the following characteristics and benefits:
- IEEE 802.3ae 10 GbE MSA
- Four wide XAUI interface
- Compliant for all IEEE 802.3ae mediums (850 nm Serial / 1310 nm WWDM, 1310 nm Serial / 1550 nm Serial)
- Hot Pluggable
- SC duplex fiber optic connector
- Industry standard 70 pin electrical connector
- Simplifies management of architecture shifts and integration
- Minimizes downtime during system upgrade or reconfiguration
- Minimize system operation costs
- Multiple vendors assure supply to meet market demand
- Thermal performance for high port densities at 10GbE
- Aggressive cost/port for LAN, ACCESS, METRO and CORE
- All port types interchangeable via front panel pluggability
- Enables "Pay-as-You-Populate" cost structure during installation
