50-400G Ethernet (PAM4)

WHY PAM4 IS THE NEW BLACK

PAM4 is the new standard for high-speed networking equipment and was developed to support Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and similar next-generation technologies.

Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) doubles the number of bits in serial data transmissions by increasing the number of levels of pulse-amplitude modulation. Unlike NRZ, which is a modulation technique that uses two voltage levels to represent logic 0 and logic 1, PAM4 uses four voltage levels to represent four combinations of two bits logic – 11, 10, 01, and 00.

Because PAM4 allows more data to be transmitted faster, it was chosen as the underlying technique for enabling 400 Gigabit Ethernet traffic.

Xena uses PAM4 in its latest Valkyrie traffic generation and analysis solutions, such as the Thor-400G-7S-1P test module.

The Thor test modules have the unique advantage of supporting both NRZ speeds (i.e. 10/25/100GE) and PAM4 (50/100/200/400GE) speeds. This makes Thor a convenient & cost-effective alternative to the big-brand vendors.  

This video shows how quick and easy it is to view PAM4 400GE FEC errors using ValkyrieManager and Xena’s “live demo” system.