What Is the Maximum Supported Length for MXIe Fiber Optic Cables?

Issue Details

What is the maximum supported length for MXIe fiber optic cables? How are bandwidth and system reliability affected when the supported cable length is exceeded?

Solution

The maximum supported fiber optic cable length depends on the MXI interface being used.

The following active fiber optic MXI cables are supported with the PCIe‑8398, PXIe‑8398, PXIe‑8399, and PXIe‑8394 modules:

The maximum supported cable length for these modules is 100 m.

If you need to connect systems located farther apart, consider using additional PXI Express chassis and MXI interfaces to create a daisy-chain or repeater configuration.

Additional Information

The supported cable lengths were established through validation testing to determine the maximum distance at which the MXI interface operates reliably.

Using fiber optic cables beyond the supported length may introduce additional latency that can interfere with the MXI interface flow-control mechanism. In some cases, this may cause communication timeouts that are interpreted as PCI Express communication failures.

Potential symptoms include:

• Reduced system reliability
• Device communication failures
• Unexpected hardware errors
• System instability
• Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) events

Because these configurations are outside the validated specifications of the MXI hardware, bandwidth and reliability cannot be guaranteed.