Broadcom Samples First 10G EPON Optical Network Unit SoC

Broadcom announced the first 10G Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) optical network unit (ONU) system-on-a-chip (SoC). The BCM55030 is designed for customer premises equipment such as enterprise routers, MDU systems and home gateways. The EPON ONU integrates a 10 Gbps media access controller, 10 Gbps EPON serializers/deserializers and forward error correction, a four-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, traffic management, and on-chip memory for both CPU and packet buffers.

The device complies with the new IEEE 802.3av 10G EPON standard including support for 10G EPON and 1G EPON co-existence on the same fiber. The chip supports both 10G/10G and 10G/1G symmetric modes of operation. The device supports Broadcom’s 2.5G Turbo EPON in addition to both standard 1G and 10G modes.

Broadcom said 10G EPON could also play a role in 4G/LTE mobile backhaul transport, as it supports both QoS-assured bandwidth and timing distribution.

Broadcom has already begun sampling the BCM55030 solution to early access customers.http://www.broadcom.com