Patent ID: 6988162

Claim:
A modular router comprising: a single electrical backplane rated to distribute at least 5000 Watts of power from a power supply to modules connected to the backplane, the backplane further comprising multiple high-speed serial differential-signaling trace pairs for carrying packet data signaling between modules connected to the backplane, the multiple differential signaling trace pairs capable of supporting, in the aggregate, data signaling across the backplane at a rate of at least 500 Gigabits/second, the backplane comprising a plurality of power planes to distribute power from the power supply to the modules connected to the backplane, a plurality of high-speed signaling layers containing the high-speed serial differential-signaling trace pairs, and a plurality of ground planes, the power planes located near the center of the backplane and isolated from the high-speed signaling layers by at least two of the ground planes, each high-speed signaling layer isolated from each other high-speed signaling layer by at least one of the ground planes.