MediaTek’s First Ultra-low Power 800GbE MACsec PHYs MT3729 Designed for Data Centers and 5G Infrastructure

MediaTek announced the commercial availability of its MT3729 product family of 800GbE (Dual 400GbE) MACsec retimer PHYs designed for the high-speed and ultra-low power data transmissions needs of data centers and 5G infrastructure applications, in addition to the stringent security requirements of these applications. The MT3729 family uses MediaTek’s industry-leading 56G PAM4 SerDes technology available as a standalone application-specific standard part (ASSP), and will equip Tier-1 network equipment and service providers to enable secure, reliable and high-speed data transfer for modem networking infrastructure.

Data center demand for 400GbE and above networking is expected to see strong growth by the end of 2020 and will eventually make up more than 25 percent of industry shipments by 2024, according to industry analysts. The MT3729 product family is ideal for line cards or switch fabrics to build multi-terabit network servers, switches and routers with secure high-speed data links and highly accurate Class-C precision time protocol (PTP) timestamping features.

Jerry Yu, MediaTek Corporate Senior Vice President, said, “MediaTek is addressing the growing need for high bandwidth, ultra-low power and improved security of next-generation network infrastructure. As an extension to our industry’s first 56G PAM4 SerDes technology, we announce our first generation of 800GbE MACsec PHYs MT3729 product family. Our MT3729 product family uses the industry’s most advanced MACsec-based encryption for secure communications, in addition to highly accurate PTP timestamping for the enhanced timing precision required for 5G wireless backhaul infrastructure.”

The MT3729 product family delivers four different operation modes:

• Retimer Mode: Built-in signal enforcement technology extends the SerDes connection distance and transmission to the edge for more precise timestamping.
• Forward/Reverse Gearbox Mode: Support for bitrate translation between 56G and 28G links enables next generation switches to seamlessly connect with existing infrastructure.
• MUX/DeMUX Mode: Hitless MUX and broadcast switching meets networking redundancy requirements.
• MACsec Mode: IEEE 802.1AE MACsec support enables secure communications with AES-128 and AES-256 encryption from 1GbE to 400GbE per port.

The MT3729 product family supports up to 16 bi-directional links at 56G PAM4, up to 28G NRZ SerDes and 1G SGMII. And since 5G networks will require tighter timing synchronization, the MT3729 family supports IEEE 1588v2 and SyncE up to Class-C for greater accuracy and more flexibility with timestamping formats.