Industry Expert Blogs

On Monday, Synopsys announced the availability of the industry’s first verification IP (VIP) and source code test suite to support the proposed IEEE P802.3bs/D1.0 Ethernet 400G standard (400GbE). To understand how it will enable next generation networking and communication systems, we take a look at the evolution of the Ethernet.

Evolution of the Ethernet

Ethernet was first commercially introduced in 1980. It was originally used to connect personal computers to other computers and shared resources like printers in an office. Ethernet continued to grow to cover campuses and data centers, and then to connect these over metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). This evolution of connectivity followed the 10X speed jumps from the 1980s to 2010 (10M, 100M, 1G, 10G, 40G and 100G) until we reached 100GbE. When the industry saw the challenges of making 100GbE affordable, the industry developed 40GbE as an interim, lower-cost step. 40GbE opened the door for non-10X steps in speed, including 25G, 50G and 400G.

Click here to read more ...