“This provides proof that 1.6T Ethernet speed is possible, and that its performance can be measured,” according to Keysight.

The rig transmits and processes more than a billion packets per second over a two meter electrical cable.

The engine operates on 16 106.25Gbit/s electrical lanes with PAM4 (pulse amplitude modulation) signalling and forward error correction – so 16 x 100Gbit/s serdes.

OSFP-XD front panel ports were used, and traffic passed over Credo’s HiWire active cable which includes electronics in the cable assembly.

“The Layer 2 engine running at 1.6T line rate provides packet and FEC measurements, plus counters, and other related statistics,” said Keysight.

“1.6T Ethernet is the next generation of Ethernet that addresses the demand for more network bandwidth and data throughput, driven in part, by ever-increasing AI workloads within the network infrastructure,” said Keysight general manager Ram Periakaruppan. “1.6T Ethernet Layer 2 traffic generation and analysis demonstration moves the needle forward to enable development of 1.6T devices and the entire networking equipment ecosystem.”