This article was co-written by Chris Lyon, President of the Ethernet Alliance; Peter Jones, Chair of the Ethernet Alliance; and Sam Johnson, Co-Chair of the High Speed Networking (HSN) Subcommittee of the Ethernet Alliance.
When we think of something that is fifty years old, oftentimes, we think of something that is outdated, broken down, or ready to be replaced. At best, we give it some flair by calling it a classic but we rarely – if ever – think of that something as being cutting-edge or in the vanguard of world-changing technology. Yet, Ethernet is just that! Ethernet is tried-and-true, “the reliable” technology that has changed the world over the past fifty years and remains at the forefront of changing the world as we know it, as it enables technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ML), edge computing, open radio networks, cloud-native infrastructure, 6G and more.
Fifty is nifty and big ears are cool
Ethernet has accomplished this trick by doing one simple thing (which, by the way, took a lot of brilliant people working together to make happen). That one thing is…having big ears. Ethernet’s long history of success comes from listening intently to what people need. From Bob Metcalfe listening to what his managers at Xerox hoped to achieve by joining the company’s computers into one network, to IEEE standards groups listening to customers’ needs, hopes, and sometimes dreams, and then making them come true, Ethernet’s 50-year journey has been one of collaboration.
While other technologies have come and gone in less than half the time, Ethernet at fifty is still breaking new ground for other technologies to follow.
The future of ethernet speeds
With the relentless pace of technological advancements in our interconnected world comes an insatiable demand for faster, more efficient network connections. The exponential growth in fields like cloud computing, content delivery, telecommunications, and AI is driving the future of higher Ethernet speeds at an unyielding rate. Further innovation, as well as Ethernet’s adoption into new markets and use cases, drives more data-intensive applications that continue to push the boundaries of Ethernet’s capabilities. This presents a significant challenge to everyone developing these technologies, particularly the standards bodies who strive to stay ahead of the physical implementations to help maintain a coherent and reliable Ethernet ecosystem.
According to a recent report from the Dell’Oro Group, 100GbE is predicted to become the mainstream server port speed this year, surpassing 25GbE in port shipments within the next four years. From a revenue standpoint, they foresee that by 2027, 200GbE and higher port speeds will make up 44 percent of server market revenues. They also forecast significant growth in the Smart NIC market, estimating that Smart NIC revenues will expand to nearly one-third of the market revenue in that same time frame.
100GbE is already the primary port speed used by the top Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), but these numbers don’t reflect the technological shift occurring within the leading 100GbE port speed, enabled by increasing the amount of data that can be transferred on a single connected lane. Partly because of the high lane count of initial 100 GbE technologies operating at 10 Gb/s per lane, usage was minimal. Higher speed lanes are changing this.
100GbE gained significant popularity with the advent of quad lane protocols running at 25Gb/s per lane, as it aligned with the QSFP connector type and a more common, acceptable cabling infrastructure. Now, there is a shift toward 50Gb/s and 100Gb/s per lane technologies, which allow for denser deployments with less copper or optical infrastructure required to achieve the same link speeds. There is also an industry trend towards accepting eight lane interconnects through QSFP-DD and OSFP connectors, opening the door to the first 800GbE ports which are now in use. This is supported by the IEEE P802.3df task force which is currently balloting a draft to formalize these protocols and interconnects.
As increases in speed continue, the first 200Gb/s per lane Ethernet devices are now being designed, with test chips available from multiple vendors. The IEEE P802.3dj task force is targeting a 1.0 draft of the first standard to govern this technology by the end of the year. There are substantial technical challenges that this next generation advancement is working to overcome, including the Bit Error Rate (BER) budget allocation, creating new FEC schemes, optical modulation types, and the overall system architecture. The task force will include eight-lane formats, providing the industry with its first path to 1.6Tb/s standard protocols. As with every new Ethernet technology, the Ethernet Alliance will be there to support and promote emerging advancements, helping to shape the landscape, and maintain a robust and reliable ecosystem that meets the demands of businesses and industries across the globe.
Slow and steady sometimes still wins the race
As Ethernet turns 50 (and a very Happy Birthday, Ethernet!), we frequently spend time talking about the next higher speed – 200GbE, 400GbE, 800bEG, 1.6T, and on into the future. While these higher speeds leverage some very cool technologies, they aren’t where the bulk of the Ethernet market is. At 50, IEEE 802.3 has its largest dynamic range ever. At the same time as we work on 200GbE/400GbE/800GbE/1.6T, we are also working on 10Mbps and 100Mbps. Someone call Doc Brown and Marty McFly, because this is true Back to the Future stuff.
I hear you asking, “Why?” There was a time when Ethernet’s motto was “ten times the speed for three times the price”. That worked well until we hit 100GbE and it was hard. Since then, Ethernet has been much more pragmatic about what makes a successful standard, and you can see this emerging with 40GbE, and then 25GbE.
The key question to ask is, “What are the unserved or underserved markets that Ethernet could target, and what makes sense for them?”. The first Automotive Ethernet standards came out in 2015/2016 for 100M and 1GbE data transmission over a single pair (100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1) as well as power delivery over these interfaces (PoDL). More recently, the Automotive Ethernet work has been in 2.5GbE/5GbE/10bEG (2020), 25GbE (2023) and a group has just started to look at high-speed (>10GbE) asymmetric Ethernet that’s optimized for devices such as the multitude of cameras used in today’s cars.
More recently, we have seen activity in Ethernet for Operational Technology (OT), Building and Industrial Automation, for example. Just as with the Automotive Ethernet market, the OT market has different requirements for speeds, reaches, media, and noise environments. The opportunity in OT is to displace older serial protocols like BACnet MSTP, DeviceNet, and 4-20 mA, with Ethernet standards designed for the target environment. We are starting at the bottom of the speed ladder with 10Mb/s (2019) and 100Mb/s (in progress). These Ethernet standards are a key to delivering the promise of Industry 4.0 and bring the benefits of today’s IT technologies to the OT world.
Even putting Automotive Ethernet and OT to the side, 1000BASE-T ports are still a major part of the total Ethernet market.
So, what’s the takeaway here? Don’t ignore the slower speeds, because slow and steady sometimes still wins the race. It’s one of the reasons that Ethernet is still going strong fifty years later.
Chris Lyon is the President of the Ethernet Alliance. He is the Cloud Business Development Manager for the Americas at Amphenol CS., where he is responsible for finding new opportunities and then actively driving and managing technology requirements during the sales process.
Sam Johnson is the Co-Chair of the High Speed Networking (HSN) Subcommittee of the Ethernet Alliance. He is the manager of the Link Applications Engineering team within Intel’s Cloud Networking Group, where he is focused on defining new features and implementation details for link behavior in current and future NCNG products while supporting debug and interoperability testing.
Peter Jones is the Chair of the Ethernet Alliance. He is a Distinguished Engineer in the Cisco Networking HW team. He works on system architecture and standards strategy across the portfolio.
