Broadcom Announces the Industry’s Highest Performance and Lowest Power Dual 10GBASE-KR PHY for Backplane Appli

Broadcom Announces the Industry’s Highest Performance and Lowest Power Dual 10GBASE-KR PHY for Backplane Applications

Industry’s First 65nm Dual KR-to-XAUI PHY Enables 10, 2.5 and 1 Gigabit Ethernet on Existing Low Cost Backplane Infrastructures

LAS VEGAS, April 28, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Interop 2008 — Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced the industry’s highest performance and lowest power 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) PHY in support of the IEEE 10GBASE-KR standard for running 10 Gbps (Gigabits per second) serial data over backplane systems. The new dual physical layer (PHY) device extends the life of today’s existing systems that use four lanes to carry 10 Gbps (XAUI) data rates by providing a four times bandwidth improvement per channel. Today’s announcement further extends Broadcom’s comprehensive portfolio of field proven and complete end-to-end 10GbE solutions featuring switching products, PHYs and controllers. Broadcom will be demonstrating its 10GBASE-KR PHY solution at Interop 2008.

Today’s blade servers and advanced telecommunications computing architecture (ATCA) equipment are self-contained, modularly designed computing systems that typically use a chassis, common backplane and Ethernet connectivity to transfer voice, video, data and multimedia within the system. However, these computing systems can only support single-channel, low bandwidth capabilities (using 1000BASE-X or 1000BASE-KX standards), or four- channel, low bandwidth per channel capabilities (using the 10GBASE-KX4 standard).

With today’s higher bandwidth applications (such as virtualization, security/encryption and multimedia), as well as the need to preserve existing systems running at 1 Gbps or XAUI data rates, serial 10 Gbps data must now be driven across the backplane. Broadcom was the first silicon vendor to address this market requirement in 2007 and is now introducing its second generation product that supports the new 10GBASE-KR standard for backplane systems.

Announced today is the Broadcom® BCM8073 dual serial 10GBASE-KR-to-XAUI backplane PHY that builds upon five generations of field proven 10GbE serial PHY technology. Designed using 65 nanometer (nm) CMOS process technology that provides the industry’s highest level of integration and lowest power consumption, the BCM8073 is an all digital signal processing (DSP)-based 10GbE PHY that provides enterprise data centers with higher bandwidth and performance, as well as significant savings in cost, resources and manpower when upgrading to 10GbE links. The BCM8073 has been verified on more than 300 existing backplane channels and has more than 3dB of margin over the worst case channels encountered in the customer base. The performance surpasses competing analog solutions that cannot sufficiently operate error free over these types of backplane channels.

“Demand for increased bandwidth is growing in every market segment from consumer to enterprise to service/content providers as newer 10GbE technologies become more cost effective,” said Lorenzo Longo, Senior Director and General Manager of Broadcom’s High-Speed Interconnect Products line of business. “Broadcom is the only silicon provider that offers a complete line of networking components (switches, physical layer devices (PHYs) and controllers) needed to build an end-to-end 10GbE-based data center. As such, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the significant growth in this market.”

Technical Information

The BCM8073 dual serial 10GBASE-KR-to-XAUI backplane PHY is the highest performing solution in the market exceeding the IEEE requirements for the 10GBASE-KR standard and has the ability to drive over 40 inches of FR-4 with 3 backplane connectors. Its all DSP-based architecture allows diagnostic tools to monitor system and channel parameters such as insertion loss, channel frequency response, equalizer response and frequency offsets, in addition to key performance metrics such as bit error rate (BER) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Other key features include:

All DSP-based architecture with a fully adaptive datapath, which continuously adapts to changes in the backplane environment such as temperature variations and crosstalk.

Multi-rate with support for 10GBASE-KR, 1000BASE-KX and 2.5 Gbps applications with auto-negotiation.

Auto programmability with 10G transmitter pre-emphasis support.

Integrated forward error correction (FEC) capabilities.

Low power: 1.2 Watts.

Industry’s Most Comprehensive 10 Gigabit PHY Portfolio

The new BCM8073 10GBASE-KR PHY and BCM8481 10GBASE-T PHY (also announced today) secure Broadcom’s position as the only silicon provider in the industry with a complete line of 10G PHY products supporting backplane, twisted pair and optical front panel applications. 10G optical front panel products include the BCM8726, BCM8706, BCM8724 and BCM8705. Broadcom’s comprehensive product portfolio includes support for all 10G PHY standards: 10GBASE-T, 10GBASE-KR, 10GBASE-LRM, 10GBASE-SR/LR and 10GBASE-ER/ZR.

Green by Design

Broadcom and its foundry partners are leveraging today’s most advanced lithographic node for manufacturing semiconductors. By designing solutions in 65nm process technology, Broadcom is able to provide significant environmental benefits over competitive solutions in 90nm and 130nm processes by enabling lower power consumption, smaller size and higher yields while providing higher levels of integration that result in fewer components. Additionally, Broadcom supports the current industry initiatives to remove lead (Pb) and other hazardous materials, such as halogens like bromide and chlorine, from all products. With the depth and breadth of Broadcom’s advanced portfolio of market-proven IP, the company is able to drive innovative new products to market while reducing the impact on human health and the environment.

Availability and Pricing

The Broadcom BCM8073 dual serial 10GBASE-KR-to-XAUI backplane PHY is now sampling to early access customers. Pricing is available upon request.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom® products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry’s broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom is one of the world’s largest fabless semiconductor companies, with 2007 revenue of $3.78 billion, and holds over 2,600 U.S. and 1,200 foreign patents, more than 7,450 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.

Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at http://www.broadcom.com.