Broadcom's Next Generation of Network Switches

Broadcom Corporation announced the launch of a new generation of wired networking devices, the Gigabit Ethernet switches that are built using the 65 nanometer fabrication process based on a CMOS compatible technology. The networking equipment manufacturing company developed the StrataXGS 200 series which is intended to be the next generation of intelligent Gigabit Ethernet, GbE for short, devices that will allow users to securely deploy networking solutions.

Using the 65 nanometer fabrication process, Broadcom reaches a new level of integration and miniaturization and that translates into lower energy consumption devices as well as reduced overall costs for local area networks, LANs for short, service providers and data centers. According to the company's press release, the new StrataXGS 200 series is made up of highly integrated switches that offer support for Gigabit Ethernet as well as up to 28 connection ports while operating at 10 /100 /1000 Megabits per second, Mbps for short. All the Broadcom products from this series provide both wire-speed switching and routing for easier management of enterprise networks while also offering support for IPv6 routing and transition services in hardware.

In order to enable the use of this series of switches on high-speed networks that are constantly under high workloads, Broadcom integrated into the StrataXGS 200 line of products a central processing unit compatible with the MIPS hardware architecture that uses a 32bit addressing system. The current series of switches also supports advanced QoS, quality of service, capabilities, network traffic metering, usage statistics while also supporting voice and video content transferring which directly translates into a better user experience. Built using the most advanced fabrication process that is available today for large scale manufacturing, the StrataXGS 200 series benefits from several advantages over products built using the 90nm and the 130nm as it needs less power to operate while being smaller in size and offering higher yields and levels of integration too.

The StrataXGS 200 series is now available as engineering samples to select customers as the entire family of products comes with a mature and highly appreciated software API, common to all units from this line. The software API also features support for multiple third party software developers and vendors as well as the Broadcom's own LVL7 FASTPATH application layer software. In order to minimize the network deployment time, technical specifications for the entire StrataXGS 200 series is available to customers including software, schematics, layout files and related documentation. The new Broadcom's line of switches is made up of the following products BCM56224 having 24 GbE ports and 4 uplinks, BCM56226 with16 GbE ports and 4 uplinks and finally, the smaller BCM56228 which has 8 GbE ports and 4 uplinks.