Industrial SFP’s-Small Form Factor Pluggables

Industrial SFP’s-Small Form Factor Pluggables with (Dynamic Management Interface)

(SFP) stands for Small Form Factor Pluggables –  and is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for both telecommunication and data communications applications.

The form factor and electrical interface are specified by a multi-source agreement (MSA) under the auspices of the S.F.P Committee.
Small Form Factor Pluggable interfaces network devices, for example switches, routers, media converters or similar device to a fibre optic or copper networking cable.

It is a popular industry format jointly developed and supported by many network component vendors.

The SFP transceivers are designed to support SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, 10Gbps Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and other communications standards. The word ‘Industrial’ indicates extended temperature operation, typically from -400C to +850C.

SFP’s are available with a variety of receiver and transmitter specifications. This allows users to select the relevant transceiver for each link to provide the required optical range over the available  fiber type (e.g. multi-mode fibre or single-mode fibre).

Transceivers are also designated by their transmission speed.  SFP modules are generally available in several different categories.

1 Gbit/s multi-mode fibre, LC connector, with black or beige extraction lever

  • SX – 850 nm, for a maximum of 0.5km at 1.25 Gbit/s (Gigabit Ethernet). Other multi-mode SFP applications support even higher rates at shorter distances.

1.25 Gbit/s multi-mode fibre, LC connector, extraction lever colours not standardised

  • SX+/MX/LSX (name dependent on manufacturer) – 1310 nm, for a distance up to 2 km. Not compatible with SX or 100BASE-FX. Based on LX but engineered to work with a multi-mode fibre using a standard multi-mode patch cable rather than a mode-conditioning cable commonly used to adapt LX to multi-mode.

1 to 2.5 Gbit/s single-mode fibre, LC connector, with blue extraction lever

  • 1000BASE-SX –Near infrared (NIR) light wavelength. The standard specifies a distance capability between endpoints of 200m over 62.5 / 125 um fibre although in practice, with good quality  fibre and terminations, 1000BASE-SX will usually work over greater distances. Modern 50/125um fibre  can reliably extend the signal to 500m or more. This standard is popular for intra-building links large offices buildings. Typical optical power parameters of an SX interface are; maximum power -5dBm stressed receiver sensitivity = -14dBm
  • LX – 1310 nm, 1000BASE-LX is a fibre optic Gigabit Ethernet Standard which uses a long wavelength laser (see IEEE 802.3 Clause 38), with a wavelength of 1270 to 1355nm and maximum RMS spectral width of 4nm. Typically GbE laser will be specified as having 1300nm or 1310nm wavelength
  • EX – 1310 nm, for distances up to 40 km
  • 1000 Base-ZX and 1000BASE-LH – 1550 nm-1000BASE-ZX and 1000BASE0LH are non standard but industry accepted terms to refer to Gigabit Ethernet transmission using 1550nm wavelength to achieve distances of at least 70 km over single-mode fibre
  • EZX – 1550 nm, for distances up to 160 km (depending on fibre path loss)
  • BX (officially BX10) – 1490 nm/1310 nm, Single Fibre Bi-Directional Gigabit SFP Transceivers. These are paired as BX-U (for Uplink) and BX-D  (for Downlink) respectively, also for distances up to 10 km. Variations of bidirectional SFPs are also manufactured which use 1550 nm in one direction, and higher transmit power versions with link distances up to 80 km.
  • 1550 nm  XD 40 km , ZX 80 km ,  EX or EZX 120 km
  • SFSW – Single Fibre Single Wavelength transceivers, for bi-directional traffic on a single fiber. Coupled with CWDM, these double the traffic density of fibre links

What is IEEE 802.3z?

IEEE Std 802.3z, extends the operating speed of  local area networks to 1 billion bits per second (1000 Mb/s (1 Gbps)) for interconnecting high-performance switches, routers, and servers in the backbone of local area networks. Maintaining backward compatibility with the over-100-million-node installed base of 10 Mb/s and 100 Mb/s. A Key requirement of the standard was to be backwards compatible and to interwork with 10Mbps and 100Mbps.

What is DMI?

ParameterSymbolMinMaxUnitNotes
Temperature monitor absolute errorDMI_Temp-33CentigradeOver operating temperature
Supply voltage monitor absolute errorDMI_VCC-0.150.15VoltFull operating range
RX Power monitor absolute errorDMI_RX-33dB
Bias current monitorDMI_bias-10%10%mA
TX power monitor absolute errorDMI_TX-33dB

DMI Stands for Dynamic Management Interface. It is a method of monitoring the fibre optic interface attached to the SFP’s.
The Dynamic Management Interface  monitors transmit and receive levels, temperature and voltages and other critical parameters. More Information.

Gigabit SFP Fibre driver Models

Part NumberGigabit EthernetFibreWaveRangeMax Tx PwrMin Rx PwrDownload PDF
885M-0.5DIEEE 802.3zMulti-Mode885nm0.5km-4dBm-18dBm SFP-885-0.5D (1086 downloads )
1310nm SFP's
813M-02DIEEE 802.3zMulti-Mode1310nm2km-1dbm-19dbm SFP-813M-002D (1066 downloads )
813S-010DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1310nm10km-3dbm-20dbm SFP-813S-010D (1049 downloads )
813S-020DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1310nm20km-2dbm-23dbm SFP-813S-020D (1009 downloads )
1550nm SFP's
815S-030DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm 30km30km-21dbm SFP-815S-030D (1034 downloads )
815S-050DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm60km+1dbm-24dbm SFP-815S-050D (1070 downloads )
815S-070DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm70km+5dbm-24dbm SFP-815S-070D (987 downloads )
815S-090DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550km90km+5dbm-27dbm SFP-815S-090D (988 downloads )
815S-110DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm110km+5dbm-30dbm SFP-815S-110D (1036 downloads )
815S-120DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm120km+5dbm-32dbm SFP-815S-120D (922 downloads )
815S-140DIEEE 802.3zSingle Mode1550nm140km +5dbm-34dbm SFP-815S-140D (1000 downloads )

SFP Pin Orientation

SFP Pin Assignments

PinSignal NameDescription
1TGNDTransmit Ground
2TX_FaultTransmit Fault
3TX_DisableTransmit Disable
4MOD_DEF(2)SDA Serial Data Signal
5MOD_DEF (1)SCL Serial Clock Signal
6MOD_DEF (0)TTL Low
7RATE SELECTOpen Circuit
8RX_LOSReceiver Loss of Signal, TTL High, open collector
9RGNDReceiver Ground
10RGNDReceiver Ground
11RGNDReceiver Ground
12RX-Receive Data Bar, Differential PECL, ac coupled
13RX+Receive Data, Differential PECL, ac coupled
14RGNDReceiver Ground
15VCCRReceiver Power Supply
16VCCTTransmit Power Supply
17TGNDTransmitter Ground
18TX+Transmit Data, Differential PCEL ac coupled
19TX-Transmit Data Bar, Differential PCEL ac coupled
20TGNDTransmitter Ground

SFP Diagrams