Patent ID: 8075199

Claim:
A form factor adapter module comprising: a small form factor (SFF) host connector configured to receive a small form factor pluggable (SFP or SFP+) module and to transmit and receive data according to a Serializer-deserializer Framer Interface (SFI) protocol, the SFF host connector including an SFP or SFP+ cage; a 10 Gigabit Ethernet Small Form-Factor Pluggable (XFP) edge finger connector configured to transmit and receive data to and from the SFF host connector according to the SFI protocol and to mate with an XFP edge finger socket; a clock and data recovery circuit configured to retime the data transferred between the SFF host connector and the XFP edge finger connector; an electronic dispersion compensator (EDC) included in the clock and data recovery circuit, the EDC being configured to recover the data received via the SFF host connector and via the XFP edge finger connector; and a housing enclosing at least a portion of the SFF host connector and at least a portion of the XFP edge finger connector, the housing having a form factor configured to receive and mate with the SFP or SFP+ module and to fit into and mate with the XFP edge finger socket.