Overview
ISO/IEC 14165-115:2006 (FC-PI) specifies the physical interface portions of the Fibre Channel high‑performance serial link. It defines the optical and electrical interface requirements that enable Fibre Channel to transport Upper Level Protocols (ULPs) such as IPI, SCSI, HIPPI, IP and IEEE 802.2. The standard focuses on transmitter/receiver behaviour, connector and cable plant specifications, jitter/eye performance, and interoperability/compliance points required for robust serial data transport.
Key Topics
- Scope and architecture: FC-PI describes the FC‑0 layer (physical interfaces) and how it supports higher ULPs.
- Optical interface specification: Requirements for single‑mode (SM) and multi‑mode (MM) links, optical input/output interfaces, jitter budgets, and laser safety considerations.
- Optical receptacles and connectors: Performance and mechanical specs for common connectors covered in the document (SC, LC, MT‑RJ, SG, MU) and duplex configurations.
- Fibre cable plant: Cable plant loss budgets, optical return loss, fibre types and modal bandwidth guidance for SM and MM deployments.
- Electrical interface specification: Transmitted/received signal characteristics, jitter and eye masks, impedance, Tx/Rx connections and example SERDES interfaces (see Annex B).
- Connectors and cable plant (electrical): Shielding, balanced/unbalanced connector guidance, inter‑ and intra‑enclosure connector norms.
- Operational functions: Receiver initialization, Loss‑of‑Signal (Rx_LOS), Tx‑Off/Rx‑LOS detection and speed‑agile port behaviours (speed negotiation).
- Compliance & test methods: Defined compliance points, test procedures and informative annexes for validation and interoperability testing.
Applications
ISO/IEC 14165-115:2006 is used by:
- Hardware designers of transceivers, line cards and SERDES to meet FC physical layer requirements.
- Cable and connector manufacturers to produce compliant fibre and electrical interconnects.
- Systems and storage architects who deploy Fibre Channel SANs and high‑performance links (SCSI over Fibre Channel, IP over Fibre Channel, HPC interconnects).
- Test and certification labs performing compliance, interoperability and jitter/eye mask testing.
- Network engineers planning cable plants and connector choices for data centres and enterprise storage networks.
Related standards
- FC‑0 layer descriptions and other Fibre Channel parts referenced within the standard (see normative references in the document).
- Upper Level Protocol standards (SCSI, IP, IPI, HIPPI, IEEE 802.2) that run over the Fibre Channel transport.
Keywords: ISO/IEC 14165-115:2006, Fibre Channel, FC-PI, physical interfaces, optical interface, electrical interface, fibre cable plant, connectors, jitter, eye masks, Tx Rx characteristics.