Multi-Sourcing Agreement (MSA)
Multi-Sourcing Agreement (MSA)
· Jomplair · Lexicon Lab

Origin and Introduction of MSA Standard

As the world's largest professional and technical organization, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has established standards for optical modules, but the interface types of optical modules from different manufacturers are diversified, in order to solve the problem of insufficient interoperability, a number of manufacturers jointly set up an organization to standardize the interface types, installation and function of optical modules, and the MSA came into being to supplement the IEEE standard. MSA (MultiSource Agreement) is also known as MultiSource Agreement, which is often referred to as SFP Transceiver MSA or SFP-MSA.

MSA was submitted to SFF, named INF-8074i, and SFF extended the SFP-MSA protocol, and the extended protocol is SFF-8472. SFF (Small Form Factor Committee) refers to the Small Form Factor Committee, which is a study group that seeks to find a solution to a problem that does not have a standard in the industry but needs to be solved urgently, and to formulate a corresponding standard. The INF-8074i protocol standardizes the mechanical structure, electrical interface, and software interface (AOH) definition; SFF-8472 standardizes the module identification, vendor information, and digital diagnostic monitoring function (DDM) of optical modules. MSA-compliant products include optical modules, fiber optic patch cords and other network equipment.

The MSA Standard and Optical Modules

For optical modules, the MSA standard not only defines the form factor, but also defines its electrical and optical interfaces, so optical module suppliers should strictly comply with the MSA standard in the system design to ensure the operability and interchangeability between optical modules. At the same time, to provide end-users with a variety of choices, due to the MSA standard-compliant optical modules have the same shape and size, the third-party optical module suppliers can also resist the brand mainstream manufacturers, to win the optical module market share, to provide users with the required optical modules, to reduce the cost of end-users to build the network, and to prevent the monopolization of the optical module market.

Tracing the development of the MSA organization from the GBIC MSA specification, which was first defined, MSA accelerated the process of fueling the acceptance of optical modules such as SFP+, CFP, QSFP-DD, etc., thus facilitating optical modules to support 400G bandwidth at higher rates.

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