Hybrid Orthogonal Connector

Overview

The hybrid orthogonal connector is a cable-plus-connector approach to EDSFF backplanes, presented by MOSE at the 2025 OCP Global Summit. It moves high-speed signaling off the backplane and into a cable, letting a simple low-cost 4-layer FR4 backplane carry only sideband, clock, and power. Compared with traditional or orthogonal backplanes that block airflow and need retimers, the hybrid cable solution reduces insertion loss and avoids active retimer devices along with their added power and heat. Updated cable specs SFF-TA-1035 and SFF-TA-1016 support the two-connector hybrid orthogonal topology, reducing insertion loss and enabling faster signaling.