Broadcom Introduces World's First 8-Port Dual-Speed Hub System-on-a-Chip
Broadcom's Silicon Hub Architecture Replaces Three Chips with One while Delivering Eight Times the Performance Over Any Other Dual-Speed Hub Solution
Irvine, CA - October 26, 1998 - Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading developer of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications to the home and business, today announced an innovative solution that slashes cost and power, reduces chip count, and increases eight-fold the performance level of dual-speed hubs in local area networks.
Another industry first for Broadcom®, the BCM5209 combines all the functions of an 8-port 10/100BASE-T/TX Ethernet hub, with integrated bridging function and eight transceivers, into a single chip solution. Representing the world's highest level of silicon hub integration, the BCM5209 reduces the number of integrated circuits in an 8-port dual-speed hub by a factor of three while its innovative architecture delivers an eight times performance improvement over any competing legacy dual-speed hub solution. Broadcom's superior integration and high performance design will enable manufacturers to introduce higher performance dual-speed hubs, using smaller enclosures, at lower than today's repeater prices. Additionally, the BCM5209 reduces the overall system power consumption by approximately 20% compared with legacy dual-speed hub architectures.
"The BCM5209 represents Broadcom's continued corporate-wide commitment to deliver value to the end-user by accelerating system level cost reduction through superior integration," said Dr. Henry Nicholas, Broadcom's President and CEO. "The level of integration and performance delivered by the BCM5209 is unprecedented. Broadcom has again made it easier and more cost effective for end users to upgrade to higher speed networks."
The BCM5209 is the world's first 10/100 Ethernet solution to integrate a high performance dual-speed hub engine, eight auto-negotiating 10/100BASE-T/TX transceivers, bridging logic, an SSRAM interface, and LED drivers into a single 3.3 volt, monolithic CMOS device. This level of integration greatly reduces the design complexities, size, and costs associated with building dual-speed hubs. When using the BCM5209, designers need only add external SSRAM to build eight-port or higher density systems. An integrated cascade expansion bus can either be used to directly interconnect multiple devices, up to 24 ports; or as a Media Independent Interface (MII) for connecting an external UTP or fiber transceiver. The system component reduction associated with Broadcom's solution not only saves on system cost and power, but also reduces the enclosure of an 8-port dual-speed hub to the size of a desktop modem, which is ideal for small office networking environments.
Broadcom's advanced silicon hub architecture is fully compliant with IEEE802.3 standards, ensuring interoperability with all standard compliant Ethernet and Fast Ethernet equipment. The BCM5209 offers advanced performance features currently not available in today's 10/100 Ethernet hubs. A typical dual-speed hub chip allows only one port to operate at either 10 or 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) at any given time. This means that all users connected to that hub effectively share the total available bandwidth. Broadcom's silicon hub architecture enables every port to simultaneously operate at 10 or 100 Mbps, providing each user with dedicated bandwidth. Furthermore, Broadcom's advanced architecture enhances performance by eliminating the congestion on ports for which the traffic was not intended. Another performance limitation of dual-speed hubs is the use of a single 10/100 bridge to convert 10 Mbps traffic on one port to 100 Mbps traffic on another and vice-versa. The BCM5209 eliminates this bottleneck by simultaneously bridging dissimilar traffic speed at full speed on each port. Depending on traffic scenarios, the BCM5209 could improve the overall network performance by up to 50 times over today's dual-speed hubs.
Each port of the BCM5209 can operate over 100-meter cable lengths at either 10 or 100 Mbps speeds. However, the BCM5209 is not bound by typical legacy dual speed hub topology or configuration limitations, resulting in complete end-user flexibility, when configuring network topology. This important feature is made possible by the unique silicon hub architecture; i.e., the BCM5209 supports bridging on every port, thereby eliminating the typical 205-meter diameter limitation imposed by legacy dual-speed hubs. The device also offers easier network expansion as new users are added. For example, when stacking is required, the BCM5209 includes two full-duplex 10/100 Ethernet front panel ports, which can be used to create a high port count stackable solution.
The 10/100BASE-T/TX transceivers incorporated in the BCM5209 perform all the physical layer interface functions for 10BASE-T Ethernet on Category 3, 4 and 5 UTP cable and 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on Category 5 UTP cable. They are based on Broadcom's field-proven Digi-F ™ Digital Signal Processing (DSP) architecture, which ensures interoperability and robust performance. Broadcom's patent pending architecture employs digital adaptive equalization and digital clock recovery techniques. This advanced digital circuitry results in cost-effective transceivers that perform reliably over a dynamic range of cable lengths and operating conditions. It also eliminates the analog offset and on-chip noise inherent in mixed-signal implementations.
The BCM5209 is available in sample quantities today and requires a single 3.3V supply. It is priced at $48.00 in 10,000 unit quantities and is packaged in a 352-pin ball grid array (TBGA) package.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading developer of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital data transmission to the home and within the business enterprise. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the Company has designed and developed integrated circuits for some of the most significant broadband communications markets, including the markets for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed networking products, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL). Broadcom is based in Irvine, California, and can be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at broadcom.com.
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This release may contain forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future events or results to differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom include, but are not limited to, the volume of product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders; the loss of a significant customer; the timing of customer qualification and industry interoperability certification of new products and the risk of non-qualification or non-certification; the rate of adoption by customers and end-users of new and emerging technologies in the high-speed data networking, cable set-top box, cable modem, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL) markets; the rate of adoption and acceptance of new industry standards in the foregoing markets; the Company's ability to specify, develop, introduce and market new products and technologies on a timely basis; the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies from other vendors; fluctuations in manufacturing yields and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of products; uncertainties associated with international operations; the Company's ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities and at the compensation levels needed to implement its business and product plans; problems or delays in achieving higher levels of design integration and in migrating product designs to smaller geometry processes; intellectual property disputes; changes in product or customer mix; the quality of the Company's products; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a quarter; the effects on operations and management of facility relocations; general economic conditions and market conditions in the markets addressed by Broadcom; and the other factors discussed in the Company's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (Amendment No. 6) and Final Prospectus dated April 16, 1998, the Registration Statement on Form S-1 dated September 30, 1998, and the Company's quarterly filings on Form 10-Q. Broadcom disclaims any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by it or on its behalf.
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