Keysight has expanded its 224G test portfolio for 1.6T optical interconnects, targeting a problem that is becoming increasingly central to AI data centre build-outs: how to validate faster electrical and optical links without letting compliance, yield, and debug cycles slow development.
The new releases span optical transmitter conformance, electrical transmitter validation, and multimode sampling, covering a path from early R&D through to production-oriented testing. That is becoming more important as network designers move to 224G electrical lanes and 1.6T optical modules to support larger scale-up and scale-out AI clusters.
The standards backdrop is still moving. IEEE P802.3dj remains the active amendment covering 200 Gb/s, 400 Gb/s, 800 Gb/s, and 1.6 Tb/s Ethernet operation, which means vendors are balancing evolving compliance requirements with the need to preserve usable margin at data rates where signal-integrity penalties become more severe and more expensive.
Keysight’s N1095DJCA optical application is aimed at IEEE 802.3dj-aligned transmitter conformance, including TDECQ and TDECQ-CER measurements for 1.6T single-mode modules. Its N1091DJPA electrical validation application is aimed earlier in the cycle, using half-rate clocking setups to help engineers characterise early silicon, ASICs, and systems before formal compliance testing. The N1096 multimode DCA-M extends coverage into short-reach multimode work at 224 Gbps or 112 GBd PAM4.
The challenge at this level is not simply bandwidth. Development and production testing can diverge quickly if measurement approaches are inconsistent, creating rework, obscuring root causes, and consuming scarce engineering time. Keysight is therefore pitching repeatability, automation, and common workflows across optical and electrical domains rather than treating each as a separate instrumentation problem.
Dr Joachim Peerlings, vice president of Network and Data Center Solutions at Keysight, said customers now need test solutions that scale “from R&D to manufacturing” as the industry moves toward 224G and 1.6T interconnects. The timing is aligned with OFC 2026 in Los Angeles, where higher-capacity optical links for AI infrastructure are again dominating the technical agenda.
As switch and optics roadmaps keep climbing, validation is becoming a gating function rather than a back-end task. Faster interconnects do not move into deployment smoothly unless qualification keeps pace, and that makes test architecture a more strategic part of the 1.6T transition than it was in earlier network cycles.
