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back to article Broadcom shrinks Ethernet switching gear to 65nm

Broadcom has refreshed its lineup of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches, bestowing them with smaller 65nm chips in time to show at Interop in Las Vegas. The merchandise covers 5-, 8-, 16-, and 24-port switch models. There's also a new big switch with 48 ports of 1GbE as well as four 10Gb ports. The company is hoping the …

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  1. Bill Cumming
    IT Angle

    Good.. smaller network cards..

    Now if they just get some darn Linux drivers produced........... :P

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  2. Steven Raith
    Thumb Up

    @Bill

    I think this is the switches, rather than the NICs, but then maybe you weren't being entirely serious ;-)

    Less power usage by switches = less heat output by switches = more space for servers given the same AC capacity. I know of at least one person who has this exact problem, and kit like this would be a boon to him.

    I bet there are a few SMB and educational facilities [who dont want to spend several grand on replacing AC equipment in what are laughably referred to as 'comms cupboards' - broomcupboards with rack space and a clapped out AC unit...] who will be glad of 'green switches' to go with the greener servers that have been appearing of late so that they can spend a few grand on data capacity, rather than refitting the creaking old AC that was originally designed to keep a couple of Pentium 90s cool....

    More data/processing/switching for the same amount of power and cooling = a good thing.

    [not that I make a habit of stating the obvious, no, surely not?]

    Steven R

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  3. Corrine
    Pirate

    Broadcom?

    They can shrink all the way to 32 nm, I still wouldn't touch them with anything but an ax if I'm doing the purchasing.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Good, smaller network cards

    Are they so huge now? Is there much benefit to 'smaller' chip tech here? Perhaps a little speed boost, which is fairly useless, as an ethernet cable just can't carry much more. Maybe a tiny bit less power use--again fairly useless, as it still has to exert itself enough to make a usable signal. When was the last time you looked at a laptop ethernet adapter or combo card and said: "Wow, that's huge! Can't they do something to make it smaller?"

    I have to agree witwh Corinne too... I've found Broadcom cards generally suck. "Wow, excellent signal! Wait... no signal... Oh, it dropped again :("

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  5. Scoured Frisbee

    @@GSNC

    According to the report, 40% power reduction, I assume that means only the switching chip, not the whole pizza box. I doubt they changed the rates for 802.*... Not a lot of boxes in this space that aren't using Broadcom chips, anyway. outside of Cisco (and some of theirs do as I recall). Green is money, in the US.

    I will say the only 802.11n AP chipset I've seen that works on the old (=cheap) PoE standard is the 65nm Broadcom one... though I haven't seen kit based on it in the stores yet, so that just might be "on a roadmap" somewhere.

    The only wireless Broadcom card I've had that wasn't wired is my 802.11n minipci in my Dell, and so far it's been solid with my Cisco and Linksys gear. Haven't needed Linux drivers for it but that's always hit-or-miss anyway, I have an old Cisco card I use when the built-ins don't work.

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