
A recent report from market research company LightCounting talks about the 40G & 100G optical transceivers basics, here are the details.
40G and 100G have two main types in the data center. Short reach (SR4) for ~100 meters transmission on multimode fiber and Long Reach (LR4) for 100 meters to 10km using single-mode fiber. We can use SR/LR transceivers to connect compute clusters and various switches layers in data centers. 40G transceivers are typically deployed as four 10G lanes in QSFP or CFP MSAs. 40G SR transceiver uses 8 multi-mode fibers, VCSEL lasers, and the QSFP MSA. Using edge-emitting lasers and multiplexes the four 10G lanes onto two single-mode fibers, 40G LR4 reach a 10km distance per CFP MSA, CFP/2 or QSFP28 MSAs. The 40G SR4 and LR4 transceivers can be used in the same QSFP switch port without any issues.