Broadcom Announces Breakthrough Integration With World s First 9-Port Fast
Ethernet Switch-on-a-Chip
Business Editors/Computer Writers
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 1998--
Broadcom Enters Switch Market, Integrating All of the MACs, Switch
Fabric and Transceivers on a Single Chip
Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq:BRCM), a leading developer of
integrated circuits enabling broadband communications to the home and
business, today announced the world s first integrated 10/100BASE-T,
9-port scalable switch, which integrates the media access controller
(MAC), switching fabric, eight 10/100 transceivers and one MII port
into a single chip. A significant breakthrough for Fast Ethernet
switching, the Broadcom(R) BCM5308 switch integrated circuit should
quickly establish lower price levels for Fast Ethernet switches. The
bill of materials for an 8-port 10/100BASE-T switch based on the
BCM5308 is reduced to approximately $14 per port.
"The BCM5308 is yet another example of how Broadcom leverages
its multi-disciplinary expertise in architecture, physical layer, and
integrated circuit design to deliver significant breakthroughs in
cost, power, and integration for our networking customers," said Dr.
Henry Nicholas, Broadcom s President and CEO. "It is well recognized
in the industry that LAN switches offer the highest level of
performance and functionality, and that Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) is
the natural successor to traditional Ethernet (10 Mbps) networks. The
BCM5308 will help accelerate the migration to these higher performance
technologies by essentially eliminating the significant price premiums
presently associated with Fast Ethernet switching."
Targeted at the competitive LAN switch market, the BCM5308
reduces the design complexities and time-to-market barriers typically
associated with switch development. The BCM5308 is a complete plug and
play switching solution, which is fully configured upon power up,
eliminating the need for an external CPU or EEPROM. The BCM5308
combines all of the functions of a full wire-speed non-blocking Fast
Ethernet switch into a single-chip solution. Networking equipment
designers need only add external low-cost SSRAM to build a complete
switching system supporting up to 32 ports (16 ports non-blocking).
Broadcom s modular and flexible architecture enables system vendors to
develop a family of products targeted at a wide variety of port
densities and price/performance points -- in most cases using the same
PCB design.
The BCM5308 is an ideal solution for the small office/home office
(SOHO) and entry-level corporate markets where cost, ease-of-use and
flexibility are of utmost importance. An integrated address management
engine allows the BCM5308 to automatically configure to any network
topology. This capability eliminates the end user from having to
configure the network, making it very easy and cost effective to
install and add additional network connections. The BCM5308 s address
management engine provides Layer 2 MAC address lookup and learning
functions at full line-speed frame rates. On-chip LED drivers provide
per port and global LED status indicators, offering the end user
helpful information about the status of the switch. This on-chip
function eliminates the need for external interface logic.
Fully compliant with the IEEE 802.3, 802.3u, and 802.3x
specifications, the device integrates eight 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX
transceivers, nine MACs, a non-blocking switch controller and the
address management engine into a 3.3 Volt, monolithic CMOS device. The
transceivers perform all the physical layer interface functions for
10BASE-T Ethernet on Category 3, 4 and 5 unshielded twisted pair (UTP)
cable and 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on Category 5 UTP cable. The
address management engine supports up to 16K Unicast MAC addresses,
which is more than sufficient for edge switch applications. The MACs
support half- and full-duplex flow control, enabling the chip to
manage network congestion. The switch fabric supports full wire-speed,
full-duplex 100Mbps traffic on every port simultaneously and enables
non-blocking performance on up to 16 ports. A 2 Gigabit-per-second
expansion bus allows designers to cascade up to four BCM5308 s or 32
ports per system in a daisy-chain configuration. A glueless interface
to low-cost commodity SSRAM further reduces the overall system cost
and provides high memory bandwidth for non-blocking performance.
The eight ports with integrated transceivers Auto-Negotiate to
either 10 or 100 Megabits-per-second and full- or half-duplex mode.
Port one can additionally be configured to FX mode. This enables the
chip to match the requirements of today s network interface cards
(NICs) and attached switches or hubs. The dual-mode ninth port
supports an MII mode for an additional UTP port or fiber uplink. It
can also be used as a high-speed expansion port for scaling to higher
port density configurations. The expansion port provides a glueless
interface between multiple BCM5308 s using a daisy-chain technique, up
to 32 ports.
The 10/100BASE-T/TX transceivers incorporated in the BCM5308 are
based on Broadcom s field-proven Digi-(PHY)(TM) 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 BCM5308 is available in sample quantities today. It is priced
at $64 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, CA and
can be reached at 949/450-8700 or at broadcom.com.
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