Identity & Definition
The NVIDIA Mellanox MFA1A00-E003 is a 100Gb/s InfiniBand EDR enterprise active optical cable (AOC) in new condition. This fiber cable uses QSFP28 connectors on both ends to deliver 100Gb/s InfiniBand EDR bandwidth over a 3-meter reach. The MFA1A00-E003 is an active fiber cable — it is NOT a passive copper DAC cable, NOT a pluggable transceiver module, and NOT an Ethernet-specific cable. The "-E" suffix designates the InfiniBand EDR variant. The full NVIDIA P/N is 980-9I13F-00E003.
Engineering Context
The MFA1A00-E003 transmits 100Gb/s using four lanes of 25Gb/s NRZ signaling over multimode fiber with integrated optical transceivers at each QSFP28 connector. The cable features an LSZH (Low-Smoke Zero-Halogen) outer jacket for fire safety compliance. As an active cable, it contains embedded electronics for electrical-to-optical conversion, enabling distances beyond the 3–5 meter limit of passive copper while maintaining low latency. Power is drawn from the QSFP28 port.
Deployment & Use Cases
The MFA1A00-E003 is deployed for short-range InfiniBand EDR connections where copper DAC cables could also reach but where fiber is preferred for cable management, weight, or bend radius reasons. Common use cases include intra-rack and adjacent-rack switch-to-HCA connections in EDR InfiniBand HPC clusters, GPU-to-GPU RDMA interconnects in AI training environments, and storage fabric links for Lustre, GPFS, and BeeGFS parallel file systems.
Technical Specifications

Part Number (MPN): MFA1A00-E003
NVIDIA P/N: 980-9I13F-00E003
Cable Type: Active Optical Cable (AOC)
Data Rate: 100Gb/s (InfiniBand EDR)
Connector: QSFP28 to QSFP28
Cable Length: 3 meters
Fiber Type: Multimode Fiber (MMF)
Jacket Material: LSZH (Low-Smoke Zero-Halogen)
Signaling: 4x 25Gb/s NRZ
Protocol: InfiniBand EDR
Condition: New

Compatibility & Hard Constraints
The MFA1A00-E003 requires EDR InfiniBand-capable QSFP28 ports on both endpoints. It is an InfiniBand-specific cable — for 100GbE Ethernet at 3 meters, use the MFA1A00-C003 or MFS1200-C003 Ethernet variants. This AOC is NOT compatible with QSFP-DD (400GbE) or QSFP56 (200GbE/HDR) ports. For longer EDR AOC reaches, the MFS1200-E010 (10m) and MFS1200-E030 (30m) are available.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Every MFA1A00-E003 cable sold by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS is factory-sealed and new. Our team provides technical consultation on NVIDIA Mellanox InfiniBand AOC compatibility, fabric planning, and deployment support. Orders ship within 1–3 business days with worldwide delivery and protective packaging.