Active Cabled Backplane

Overview

An Active Cabled Backplane replaces traditional passive PCB-trace backplanes with active copper or optical cable assemblies, using active signal conditioning elements to boost signal integrity and extend reach for high-bandwidth scale-up interconnects. This approach is a key enabler for AI rack architectures operating at 200 Gbps+ per lane and multi-rack scale-up configurations where passive trace lengths would degrade signal quality beyond spec. Astera Labs positions the Active Cabled Backplane as the third structural component of its AI Open Rack architecture alongside the Compute Platform and Scale-Up Switch Platform.