Chips · Oct 19, 2026, 10:16

Cisco and NVIDIA's USFP Optics Carry 1.6T on Four 400G Lanes

Cisco and NVIDIA are drafting USFP, a pluggable optics spec that carries 1.6 Tbps on four 400G SerDes lanes, Cisco said ahead of the OCP Global Summit.

Network switch faceplate filled with pluggable optical modules and glowing fiber cables — Pluggable optics on a data center switch.
Illustration (AI-generated)

San Jose, October 13 — Cisco and NVIDIA are jointly drafting a multi-source specification for USFP, a new pluggable optics form factor built for 400G SerDes lanes that carries a 1.6 Tbps port on four lanes, Cisco told analysts ahead of the OCP Global Summit. The companies say other vendors will be able to build to the spec.

Cisco paired the optics news with switch silicon updates, including first systems based on Silicon One G300 and a new G302 top-of-rack chip.

The Technical Details

Today's common optics use 200G lanes. At 400G per lane, a 1.6 Tbps port needs only four lanes, and the same building block scales to 16 and 32 lanes. Cisco and NVIDIA did not publish physical dimensions or power envelopes for the module.