- 3M’s AOC solutions provides high performance and speed at one of the lowest levels of power on the market -

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3M today announced the availability of its line of active optical cable assembly solutions at DesignCon 2012. The 3M Active Optical Cable (AOC) Assemblies for QSFP+ and CX4 applications offer an advanced new light-engine design to provide design engineers with exceptional performance at a low cost.

Both 3M AOC assemblies use only 540 mW of energy per end, making 3M’s line of active optical cables one of the lowest power cable solutions on the market. The 3M AOC QSFP+ cable assembly offers four-channels of bi-directional data at up to 10 Gbps, while its counterpart, the 3M AOC CX4 cable assembly, offers those using legacy interfaces with four channels of bi-directional data at up to 5 Gbps. Featuring a lightweight, flexible and routable design, 3M’s line of AOC assemblies are ideal for applications in high-performance computers, data center networks, high-speed servers and other applications where high speed and low power is a must.

“High-speed cable assemblies are a must for systems that deal with large amounts of data and information, especially in this always-on, always connected world,” said David N. Schneider, global business manager, 3M Electronic Solutions Division, Interconnect Business. “3M’s line of active optical cables gives design engineers the ability to keep systems running at faster speeds while ensuring that minimal power is needed – a priority for high-consumption operations like server farms and data center networks.”

3M plans to launch a variety of active optical cable assembly options during 2012, including a hybrid QSFP+ to CX4 solution to connect legacy systems to newer systems; a CXP cable assembly with 12 channels of bi-directional data at 10 Gbps per channel for greater bandwidth options; and AOC QSFP+ FDR, which features four channels of bi-directional data at 14 Gbps per channel, for up to an 56 Gbps aggregate to use with the most demanding of high-speed solutions.

Samples of 3M’s line of AOC solutions will be on display at the 3M booth (#706) at DesignCon 2012 in the Santa Clara Convention Center, Jan. 31 – Feb 1, 2012. To learn more about 3M’s line of high-speed solutions, visit www.3Mconnectors.com.

About 3M Electronic Solution Division – Interconnect

3M Electronic Solutions Division’s Interconnect business offers a variety of innovative connectors, cables and cable assemblies, embedded capacitance materials and Textool brand test and burn-in sockets for component engineers and designers in the electronics industry. For more information about 3M’s Interconnect solutions, visit: http://www.3Mconnectors.com. Information about 3M Company is available online.

3M is a trademark of 3M Company.
All other trademarks listed herein are owned by their respective companies.

3MJenni Balthrop, 512-984-2146jsbalthrop@mmm.com