Rear-Mounted. Blind-Mated. Front-Free.
Infinity Fiber Bus Bar — EBO blind-mate optical backplane for OCP ORv3/ORW racks. A flat-profile busbar that runs vertically at the rear alongside 48VDC power and liquid cooling, leaving the front face open for ELS pluggables and loopback adapters.
EBO Blind-Mate
>500 Cycles
Base-8/16
ORv3 Native
Main Features
Fiber, Power, and Cooling. Together.
The Infinity FBB is a flat-profile busbar that runs vertically at the rear of the rack, mounted parallel to the 48VDC busbar and liquid cooling distribution. This leaves the front face entirely free for ELS pluggable modules, thermal management, and loopback adapters. No front, nor back panel fiber clutter. Reduced blocked airflow.
Contamination-Resistant Connection
Expanded Beam Optics (EBO) reduces sensitivity to dust and contamination that would degrade insertion and return loss in traditional physical-contact connectors. The blind-mate interface guarantees alignment without visual inspection. Real plug-and-play — no patch management at the front or back.
Shelf-Level Redundancy
The blind mating at the back could allow for a 2RU sled containing multiple shelves, with ASIC distribution per shelf. If one shelf fails, technicians hot-swap that shelf independently without pulling the entire sled or disturbing the other ASICs. Four ASICs per sled, maintained at the shelf level. Aligned with OCP disaggregated design principles.
Why Copper Hits a Wall
Copper backplanes and NVLink cables scale poorly in weight, bulk, and bandwidth density. At 800G and 1.6T, copper reach, bend radius, and kilograms-per-rack become prohibitive. The Infinity FBB replaces heavy copper harnesses with lightweight fiber ribbons or round cables, made to length to eliminate overlength management inside the equipment.
9 Nodes. 72 GPUs. 1 Rear Busbar.
Rack Layout
- 1 ORv3/ORW rack houses 9 AI nodes
- Each AI node = 8 GPUs (4 top, 5 bottom configuration)
- Leaf switches sit between the AI nodes
- AI Node rear blind-mate interfaces:
- 8× GPU C2C (chip-to-chip)
- 2× Front End
- 1× In-Band Management
- Leaf Switch: 144 ports per 2RU
- 72 ports to GPUs (downstream)
- 72 ports to Spine network (upstream, outside the rack)
Fiber Bus Bar Placement
- Infinity FBB runs vertically at the rear of the rack as a flat-profile bar
- Mounted parallel to the 48VDC busbar and liquid cooling manifolds
- EBO blind-mate ferrules align with each AI node and leaf switch sled
- 9× EBO ferrule positions per connection point
- Supports 144-port configurations (all 9 ferrules active)
- Supports 128-port configurations (middle ferrule unused)
Technical Specifications
| Parameter | Specification |
|---|---|
| Physical | |
| Form Factor | Rear-mounted flat-profile fiber busbar for OCP ORv3 / ORW racks |
| Orientation | Vertical run, mounted parallel to 48VDC busbar and liquid cooling manifolds |
| Integrated Shuffle | Factory pre-terminated connectivity, no field testing required |
| Mating Type | EBO (Expanded Beam Optics) blind-mate, 3M EBO and USCONEC PRIZM TMT |
| Mating Cycles | >500 |
| Ferrule Count | 9× EBO ferrules per interface (supports 144-port or 128-port configs) |
| Fiber & Connectivity | |
| Fiber Types | MMF (OM4/OM5) and SMF (G.657.A1/A2) |
| Base Options | Base-8 and Base-16 on EBO blind-mate side |
| Cable Construction | Flat ribbon or round cable, made to length |
| Overlength Management | Minimized via factory-cut, sled-specific lengths |
| Optical Performance | |
| EBO Insertion Loss | Low-loss expanded beam profile |
| Contamination Sensitivity | Reduced vs. physical contact (PC/UPC/APC), factory pre-terminated |
| Return Loss | Stable under typical data center dust exposure |
| Switch & GPU Shuffle Options | |
| 4×4 Rail-Optimised | Switch-to-GPU or Leaf-to-Spine |
| 8×8 Rail-Optimised | Higher-density GPU clustering (custom) |
| Straight Mapping | Non-shuffle CPO-to-back blind-mate assemblies |
| Transceiver Compatibility | |
| Reach Options | SR (MMF), DR (SMF), FR (SMF) — determined by CPO/NPO configuration |
Deployment Scenarios
Photonics at the Front. Fiber at the Back.
CPO optimized, with ELS and loopbacks at the front for maximum maintainability and optimized ELS cooling. The Infinity FBB moves all fiber connectivity to the rear, co-located with power and cooling. The front is reserved for what matters: photonics, cooling, and serviceability.
From Copper Harness to Fiber Busbar
Replace bulky, weight-intensive NVLink copper bundles with a single lightweight fiber busbar. At 800G and 1.6T lane speeds, copper reach and bend radius become impractical. Fiber provides the bandwidth headroom without the kilograms — and the Infinity FBB delivers it in a hot-pluggable, blind-mate form factor.
Swap the Shelf, Not the Sled
OCP modularity demands component-level serviceability. With two shelves per sled and two ASICs per shelf, a technician can pull a single failed shelf without disturbing the other three ASICs. The EBO blind-mate disconnects cleanly. The fiber busbar stays in place. Downtime is measured in minutes, not hours.
Standards Alignment
Move Fiber to the Rear. Free the Front.
Discuss your OCP ORv3 rack architecture, GPU-to-leaf shuffle requirements, and EBO blind-mate configuration with our engineering team. See the Infinity FBB rear-busbar integration live at our booth.