With the expansion of the 100G industry, the speed of development of optical communication data centers is an inevitable trend, and the cost of 100G optical modules will be reduced accordingly, thereby reducing the cost of the entire 100G network deployment.

The 100G QSFP28 optical module first appeared in 2013. After several years of development, the QSFP28 optical module has been derived into several categories, each of them have different optical module standards and suitable for different transmission applications.

The 100G CFP optical module, also known as the 100G client module,is an external packaging pluggable module that supports hot pluggable. CFP series optical modules have experienced the development of CFP, CFP2 and CFP4 from the launch to the present.

The full spelling of G in 5G is Generation, and 5G is the fifth generation communication. 100G refers to the data rate of the optical module. QSFP28 and CFP4 are package representations of optical modules, representing the uniformity of the form factor, the range of transmission/reception, the transmission path of the fiber and the relevant protocol.

Then 100G QSFP28 optical module and 100G CFP4 optical module, which are more advantageous in terms of performance and price? Next, ETU-Link will give you a detailed analysis.

CFP4 optical module VS QSFP28 optical module

Port density

The CFP4 optical module is the latest generation of 100G optical modules in the CFP package. Compared with the QSFP28 optical module, even though its width is 1/4 of the size of the first-generation CFP, its package form is larger than the QSFP28 optical module, which indicates that QSFP28 light module is better in port utilization.

High density wiring

The 100G QSFP28 optical module uses four optical fiber channels to transmit data, and the transmission rate of each optical fiber channel can reach up to 28Gbps, it mainly used for 100G transmission applications. Compared with 100G CFP4 optical module, 100G QSFP28 optical module is more suitable for high-density wiring, and most data centers prefer to choose 100G QSFP28 optical module.

The category of optical module

100G QSFP28 optical module and the 100G CFP4 optical module are derived into multiple categories. Below we will show the categories between the two in the form of table:

From the above chart we can know that, first of all, the category of QSFP28 optical module is more than the CFP4 optical module, and the scope of application will be more extensive. Secondly, in terms of transmission distance, 100G QSFP28 optical module is more advantageous and develops more rapidly, which complies with the development demand of the market. Overall, both price and performance, QSFP28 optical module are more advantageous than CFP4 optical modules.