Broadcom Router Chips Aim at ASICs

摘要

Service-provider routers continue to rely heavily on OEM-proprietary ASICs. Broadcom, however, has enabled increasingly sophisticated routers based on merchant silicon. Now, its next-generation StrataDNX products are leapfrogging OEM ASICs in port density while also supporting 400G Ethernet. The new chipset comprises Jericho2 for line cards and Ramon for the switch fabric, upgrading network ports and the backplane with 50Gbps PAM4 serdes. A single Jericho2 handles 12x400GbE ports (4.8Tbps), whereas each Ramon delivers 9.6Tbps of fabric bandwidth. Together, they enable a 16-slot chassis switch/router with 230Tbps of front-panel bandwidth.