May 11, 2011 14:58 GMT  ·  By

Marvell has just announced that is has become the first hardware vendor to deliver production quality 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller chips built using the 40nm process technology. The ICs were designed to deliver low power consumption in high-density applications.

The product family is comprised out of two solutions, the 8X3140 and 88X3120 Alaska X PHYs, and both of these pack a nearly identical feature set.

The main difference between the two controllers comes from the number of ports supported, as the 88X3140 can deliver up to four 10G Ethernet ports, while the 88X3120 can drive a maximum of two such ports.

Both of the ICs however, are optimized to deliver a low power consumption and are compatible with the Energy Efficient Ethernet standard.

As a result, the controllers have a power consumption of only 2.5W per port at 100m of reach which makes them well suited for high-density applications.

In addition, power consumption can be further reduced by running the chips in the so called "Datacenter Mode," which enables them to consume less than 1.5W per port.

“The 88X3140 and 88X3120 devices offer ultra-low-power consumption that enables high-density solutions for the new public and private cloud infrastructures,” said Paul Valentine, vice president of marketing for Marvell's Enterprise Business Unit.

“Robustness and low power are critical requirements and Marvell continues in its leadership with the 40nm Quad 10GBASE-T PHY solutions,” concluded the company's rep.

At this time, Marvell hasn't disclosed any information regarding the availability of its new Alaska X 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers.

The company did however announce that it has developed a reference design, based on the Marvell Prestera-CX switch, that supports up to 48 ports of 10GBASE-T in a 1RU form-factor and is powered by Alaska X PHYs. The device is showcased right now at the Interop 2011 expo.