Broadcom announced a new dual port Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) transceiver designed specifically for IP phone applications. Since IP phones require dual ports to support both voice and data simultaneously, Broadcom’s new transceiver is a great companion chip to its existing IP phone product family, enabling a two-chip Gigabit IP phone solution.
Broadcom said that as networks migrate to Gigabit Ethernet, the current generation of Fast Ethernet IP phones act as a bottleneck to PC data traffic as the IP phone resides between the network and the PC, supporting both voice calls and data using one Ethernet connection. In this configuration, the IP phone dictates the speed of the PC data traffic. The widespread adoption of GbE-enabled PCs by the enterprise market, coupled with the increase in corporate upgrades to support GbE, has created a critical need for IP phones to support Gigabit Ethernet to prevent bottlenecks between the network and the PC.
The new chip is the latest member of Broadcom’s 0.13-micron Gigabit Ethernet-over-copper physical layer (PHY) device family, joining more than 25 additional quad and single port PHY/transceiver products. The dual port GbE transceiver is sampling to early access customers and is priced at $8.40 in quantities of 10,000 units.
http://www.broadcom.com
