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4h ago

Cisco and NVIDIA Unveil USFP, a 400Gb/s‑Per‑Lane Pluggable Form Factor

Promising up to 12.8Tb/s per port, the design reduces per‑bit power use as a pluggable option supported by an open industry plan.

A close-up view of the Cisco and NVIDIA Ultra-Dense Small Form-Factor Pluggable (USFP) module, featuring a sleek, metallic design against an abstract, high-tech background representing AI data center networks.
Ultra-Dense Small Factor Pluggable
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Overview

  • Cisco and NVIDIA released design plans for the Ultra‑Dense Small Form‑Factor Pluggable (USFP), a new pluggable optics form factor built for 400Gb/s electrical signaling per lane.
  • The first USFP transceivers are specified to carry 16 full‑duplex lanes in an OSFP‑sized footprint with a path to 32 lanes, enabling up to 12.8Tb/s of aggregate capacity per port.
  • USFP uses a novel two‑dimensional connector with a two‑step insertion action to protect contacts and support high‑speed 400Gb/s‑per‑lane signaling.
  • Cisco and NVIDIA say USFP delivers about four times the bandwidth density and roughly 1.3 times the power efficiency versus 200Gb/s‑per‑lane pluggables, and it is specified to handle up to ~100W of dissipation without embedded transceiver cooling.
  • TE Connectivity and Amphenol are initial hardware partners and Cisco and NVIDIA plan a community‑led multi‑source project to open the specification and build a multi‑vendor supply ecosystem.