Marvell Technology unveiled the industry’s first full 400G/lane electrical-to-optical link operating at 224 Gbaud, marking a milestone in PAM4-based connectivity. The live demonstration, being showcased this week at OFC 2025 in San Francisco, confirms the feasibility of 400G/lane links on real silicon and paves the way for next-generation AI and cloud-scale networks. Marvell’s 400G/lane platform includes DSPs, transimpedance amplifiers, modulator drivers, and optical components optimized for serial PAM4 transmission.
The new 400G/lane technology offers a 4x increase in per-lane bandwidth over today’s 100G/lane infrastructure and doubles the throughput compared to the 200G/lane links now being deployed. Marvell is collaborating with ecosystem partners Lumentum and TeraHop, who are also demonstrating 400G/lane capabilities at OFC. Their joint showcase covers a complete link solution—from electrical input to optical output—designed to support 3.2T transceivers required for data-intensive workloads like AI training and inference.
Marvell’s move builds on its earlier leadership in 100G and 200G PAM4 connectivity, establishing it as a key player in the next era of serial optical networking. The company sees pluggable optics continuing as the dominant deployment model through the decade and is investing in collaborative efforts to ensure commercial readiness of 400G/lane solutions.
Key Points:
• Marvell demonstrates the first full 400G/lane PAM4 link at 224 Gbaud using real silicon.
• Live demo at OFC 2025 in partnership with Lumentum and TeraHop.
• 400G/lane enables 3.2T transceivers, boosting AI and cloud data center scale-out.
• Represents 4x bandwidth increase over 100G/lane and 2x over 200G/lane infrastructure.
• Includes advanced DSPs, TIAs, modulator drivers, and InP-based photonics components.
“Marvell has a long history of innovation in PAM4 connectivity, being the first to demonstrate proven 100G/lane and 200G/lane, and now 400G/lane PAM4 connectivity,” said Xi Wang, vice president and general manager of Marvell’s Connectivity Business Unit. “We’re excited to be working with leading partners like Coherent, Lumentum, and TeraHop to forge a roadmap for the next chapter in networking.”
- PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels): PAM4 is a modulation scheme that encodes two bits of data per symbol using four distinct voltage levels. Compared to the older PAM2 (NRZ), which transmits only one bit per symbol, PAM4 doubles the data rate without increasing the symbol rate. This makes it essential for achieving higher bandwidths (like 100G, 200G, and 400G/lane) over existing electrical and optical interfaces.
- Gbaud (Gigabaud): Gbaud refers to the symbol rate, or how many symbols (signal changes) are transmitted per second. In optical communications, 1 Gbaud = 1 billion symbols per second. A 224 Gbaud signal, for instance, means 224 billion symbols per second are transmitted. When used with PAM4 (2 bits per symbol), a 224 Gbaud signal achieves a data rate of 448 Gbps per lane. Gbaud helps define the underlying speed at which data is modulated and transmitted.
