"From late Q3 of last year until now, I've seen a good 20 percent erosion of prices," says Michael Laudon, director of hardware engineering for Force10.
XFP is one of several multisource agreements (MSAs) for 10-Gbit/s Ethernet transponders and transceivers, a group including the Xenpak, XPAK, and X2 MSAs. Those three split a 10-Gbit/s electrical signal into four lanes of 3.125 Gbit/s, making it more palatable to today's chips. The XFP is more advanced, using a serial 10-Gbit/s electrical interface. It's smaller, and module vendors assume it will eventually replace the other options. (See 10-GigE Transponders: Update.)
XFP was expected to get a fast start due to interest from storage area networking (SAN) vendors. But the emergence of a 4-Gbit/s SAN generation put many 10-Gbit/s plans on rain delay (see XFP No Longer a BFD).
Even as prices fall, equipment vendors can't immediately switch to XFP, because it takes a board redesign to replace a Xenpak or X2 module. Those redesigns could get sped up or released to market earlier than expected, but it's still going to take some time.
Still, competition is fierce enough for prices to fall. "It is somewhat surprising because there isn't that much volume yet," Laudon says. "There are just so many vendors in the market."
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