May 11, 1999
Broadcom Plans to Unveil New Chip
That May Speed Up Office Networks
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
IRVINE, Calif. -- Broadcom Corp. Tuesday will unveil a new chip
that could accelerate the development of much faster office
computer networks, people familiar with the matter said.
The company is expected to demonstrate a chip that can handle
computer traffic at as much as one gigabit, or one billion bits a
second, over the copper-based Ethernet wiring used in most
offices. Most office networks now operate at 10 million to 100
million bits a second. Several companies make gigabit-speed
switches, but they all rely on fiber-optic lines to transmit the data.
Using copper wire will make it drastically cheaper and easier to
build gigabit-speed networks, which will accommodate video and
telephone calls as well as computer traffic, analysts and industry
executives said. For example, a $100 transceiver used on chips for
fiber networks can be replaced with a 50-cent connector for
copper networks, said Allen Leibovitch, an analyst for
International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass.
The announcement, at an industry trade show, carries weight
because of Broadcom's dominant position in chips for high-speed,
or "broadband" communications. Its chips are in the majority of
cable modems and digital cable set-top boxes, as well as in many
high-speed networking devices.
The new chip is "a huge deal," said a spokesman for 3Com Corp., a
Santa Clara, Calif., network equipment maker that is Broadcom's
second-biggest customer. "We've been on the edge of our seats for
quite some time."
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