Robbie Xu, Director of Product Management and Marketing at Luxshare-Tech, presented the Intrepid NEXUS 224G+ cable backplane and cable cartridge solution at OCP Global Summit 2025 in San Jose. The presentation covered six key challenges for scale-up AI rack cable cartridges—channel budget, mating robustness, signal integrity, co-design, vertical integration, and fast ramp—and showed how Luxshare-Tech's integrated product stack addresses each. Measured SI data for the NEXUS connector demonstrated insertion loss under 10 dB at 53–60 GHz and crosstalk below PXI noise floor below 40 GHz, achieving a total bump-to-bump loss of 24.13 dB at 53 GHz. The presentation also outlined a roadmap extending to 448G copper backplane.

Key Takeaways

• Luxshare-Tech's Intrepid NEXUS backplane achieves a full bump-to-bump channel budget of 24.13 dB at 53 GHz using KOOLIO 224G CPC + Optamax 31 AWG twinax + Intrepid NEXUS, fitting within the ~24 dB target for 224G AI rack designs.
• The Intrepid NEXUS connector operates at 2.4x2.4 mm pitch (80 DP/sq. inch), supports ±3 mm X/Y and 4 mm Z float, validates to 53 GHz today with a path to 75 GHz, and is conservatively rated at 224 Gbps while believed capable of 300 Gbps.
• Crosstalk performance of Intrepid NEXUS is below PXI background noise floor below 40 GHz; both NEXT and FEXT remain below ~60 dB up to 53–60 GHz, making it a competitive solution for stringent crosstalk budgets.
• Luxshare-Tech ships over 300 million differential pairs in cable backplane products since 2019, with fully automated in-house production of contacts, mold, bulk cable (Optamax 224G, 26–31 AWG, 92 ohm), and cable cartridge assembly including AOI and BERT testing.
• The Intrepid product roadmap spans three generations: EVO (112G), APEX (224G high-density), and NEXUS (448G, TBD), with Luxshare-Tech publicly committing that copper cable backplane will still evolve at 448G.
• Multiple NEXUS configurations are in production: 4-pair, 8-pair (cable header variants up to 8x20), and right-angle receptacle options, with 12-pair and external HD DAC variants under development.