MaxLinear, announced it will exhibit its next-generation 1.6T PHY chipset at OFC 2026, taking place March 17–19 in San Diego. The showcase will occur at South Hall, Booth 1049, and will feature live demonstrations of the Rushmore 200G/lane PAM-4 DSP family and the Washington 200G/lane TIA.
Rushmore represents the first major high-speed DSP built entirely using Samsung technology, providing customers with a foundry second source and supply chain flexibility. Demonstrations at the MaxLinear booth will include:
An end-to-end optical link using the Rushmore 1.6T DSP paired with the Washington TIA and partner optics, transmitting and receiving 224 Gb/s per lane.
Electrical performance testing to show robust operation in challenging system environments.
These demonstrations cover data center applications ranging from short-reach multimode links to reaches of up to 2 km, supporting both scale-up and scale-out AI networking architectures.
Rushmore will also appear in industry interoperability demonstrations:
Ethernet Alliance booth: Compliance testing with emerging 224G Ethernet standards.
OIF booth: 224G CEI Very Short Reach (VSR) interoperability across switches, optical modules, and high-speed cabling.
Additional exhibits at the MaxLinear booth will include customer optical modules incorporating Keystone 400G and 800G DSPs, as well as Rushmore DSPs, for fully retimed transceivers, linear receive optics (LRO), and active electrical cables (AEC). Keystone DSPs have seen widespread adoption by module vendors and hyperscale data center operators, with millions of units shipped.
MaxLinear’s connectivity portfolio addresses optical and copper interconnect requirements for current 400G and 800G deployments while preparing for 1.6T systems. Key components include:
Rushmore: 1.6T PAM-4 DSP targeting sub-25W optical modules, fabricated on Samsung’s leading-edge CMOS process, with high-swing integrated driver, IFEC, ILT, and MPI localization.
Washington: Low-power 224 Gb/s four-lane TIAs for retimed PAM-4 IMDD applications.
Keystone: 400G and 800G DSPs with high-swing and driverless options, full gearbox, reverse gearbox, cross-bar, and legacy rate support.
Topanga: Four- or eight-channel 100G-per-lane TIAs with low cross-talk and low power consumption.
The company’s roadmap focuses on power efficiency, reach optimization, and system flexibility to support AI-driven data center growth.
