Case Study: Amphenol achieves clearer cable performance benchmarking with Xena Networks Chimera impairment emulator

Amphenol improves cable BER by up to 100x with Xena Networks

Amphenol, a major developer and manufacturer of connectors and interconnect systems, faced the challenge of benchmarking and documenting the performance differences between various high-speed passive and active copper cables. They needed a testing solution that could emulate real-world conditions, measure subtle Bit Error Rate (BER) differences, and handle the complexities of 800Gbps connections with different cable types and lengths. They turned to Xena Networks and their Teledyne LeCroy Z800 Freya traffic generator for this task.

Xena Networks provided the Z800 Freya traffic generator, which enabled Amphenol to conduct precise Layer 1 BER measurements and advanced Layer 2 testing. The solution allowed Amphenol to tune transmitter equalizers for optimal performance on each cable, quantitatively compare performance across a wide range of cables, and identify issues through per-lane analysis. As a result, Amphenol clearly demonstrated that active cables significantly extend maximum usable distance compared to passive ones, gaining valuable insights for product development and customer issue analysis while eliminating days of manual testing through automation.

Amphenol