Merchant switch chips rev transition to Gigabit Ethernet

摘要

Mountain View, Calif. ― Communications OEMs have abandoned Gigabit Ethernet ASICs in favor of less expensive merchant switch chips, a market report on Gigabit Ethernet silicon maintains. This is one of the factors that will help the technology surpass Fast Ethernet chip sales this year, according to the report from The Linley Group, based here. Also, the report states, higher-integration physical-layer (PHY) chips are arriving from more vendors, and Gigabit Ethernet controllers are moving to PCI Express. "Every major OEM except Cisco has adopted merchant Gigabit Ethernet switch chips, and we see fewer and fewer ASIC switch designs going on for work group-class systems," said Bob Wheeler, senior analyst at The Linley Group and co-author of the report. "In this market, the rising costs and design cycles of ASICs are a killer."