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Broadcom Introduces New NetXtreme II(TM) Gigabit Ethernet Controller Integrating TOE, iSCSI and RDMA in a Single-Chip PCI Express(R) C-NIC Solution

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 March 2005, 09:00 CST

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, Intel Developer Forum (IDF) /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation , a global leader in wired and wireless broadband communications semiconductors, today announced its latest chip offering in the NetXtreme II(TM) family of Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) converged network interface controllers (C-NICs). The new NetXtreme II C-NIC is the first to support the PCI Express(R) bus architecture, and continues the product family's distinction as the only line of GbE controllers in the industry to support a TCP/IP offload engine (TOE), iSCSI, and Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) on a single-chip platform.

Broadcom(R) NetXtreme II C-NIC technology is designed as a cost-point replacement to standard Gigabit Ethernet implementations enabling the adoption of TOE, iSCSI and RDMA as a baseline function for blade, high-density rack and tower server LAN-on-motherboard (LOM) applications, as well as for standalone high-performance network adapters.

In today's enterprise network, a standard server equipped with current Ethernet controller silicon cannot simultaneously run network, storage and cluster traffic over a single Ethernet fabric as that capability would require dedicated CPUs to operate the network at the full line rate. While running over a standard Ethernet network, Broadcom's C-NIC technology enables network protocol processing to be offloaded from the host to the C-NIC, thereby saving the server's CPU and memory I/O resources to perform their primary tasks. The NetXtreme II family of C-NICs enables IT professionals to simplify their networking by providing network, storage and clustering capabilities over existing and familiar TCP/IP and Ethernet infrastructures while boosting server performance through a 5x improvement in CPU utilization. In addition to maintaining the aggressive price points necessary for broad server LOM adoption, Broadcom NetXtreme II C-NICs significantly increase server performance and enhance functionality.

Announced today is the NetXtreme II BCM5708, representing the second generation of C-NIC silicon solutions from Broadcom. The first generation C-NIC, the BCM5706, is now in volume production. The new BCM5708 C-NIC is sampling to early access customers and features the functionality of TCP/IP offload, iSCSI and RDMA, while adding the PCI Express peripheral connect interface to the architecture. Since PCI Express is the preferred LOM connection interface on most servers being designed today, Broadcom has enabled major server OEMs to incorporate the BCM5708 C-NIC into industry standard high-volume servers currently under development. In conjunction with Broadcom's first generation PCI-X(R)-based BCM5706 C-NIC, the company now has a NetXtreme II C-NIC solution for both PCI Express and PCI-X bus architectures.

"We're excited to introduce the BCM5708 and believe that with our latest addition to the NetXtreme II C-NIC family, Broadcom's C-NIC solutions will become a baseline of communications technology for the next-generation of volume servers," said Greg Young, Senior Director and General Manager of Broadcom's High-Speed Controller Line of Business. "By delivering a second generation product with a PCI Express interface, at a cost point necessary to replace standard LOMs, we expect the NetXtreme II line of C-NICs to redefine enterprise networks and servers as we know them today."

"We witness today another step towards enabling servers using the Windows(R) operating systems to enjoy convergence of data, storage and clustering over the TCP/IP/Ethernet infrastructure with significantly better performance, due to feature support like RDMA," said Jawad Khaki, Vice President, Windows Networking & Devices, Microsoft Corporation. "Windows leads the way for convergence, enabling servers and server blades to consolidate the I/O, and has now reached maturity of software and hardware."

PCI Express is a high-speed peripheral interconnect technology designed to accommodate higher speed CPUs. By adding a PCI Express-based C-NIC to its portfolio of NetXtreme II products, Broadcom not only extends its GbE leadership in PCI Express technology, but with a PCI Express x4 interface, supporting up to 10 Gigabit per second (Gbps) throughput, provides leading performance for the latest server technologies.

"PCI Express technology is gaining broad acceptance throughout the industry in a wide variety of applications because it can provide previously unobtainable levels of performance and functionality at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions," said Jim Pappas, Director of Initiative Marketing for Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.

Broadcom's NetXtreme II GbE controller chips are the first and only controllers in the industry to deliver storage networking, high-performance clustering, accelerated data networking and remote system management pass-through functions in a single, all-in-one solution at price points enabling the broad adoption of this technology. By deploying these functions over standard Ethernet networks, IT professionals can significantly reduce the costs associated with deploying and maintaining today's complex fabric infrastructure. The BCM5708 NetXtreme II controller is a continuation of Broadcom's successful C-NIC strategy.

"HP is committed to working with industry leaders, like Broadcom, to create innovative, customer-focused technologies that optimize the performance and utilization of IT investments," said Paul Perez, Vice President, Storage, Networking & Infrastructure, Industry Standard Servers, HP. "The BCM5708 and BCM5706 controllers enable multifunction networking to help customers optimize server performance, improve network communications, and build on industry standards to strengthen scale-out computing economics."

Pricing and Availability

The BCM5708 C-NIC is sampling to early access customers. Pricing is available upon request.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a global leader in wired and wireless broadband communications semiconductors. Our products enable the convergence of high-speed data, high definition video, voice and audio at home, in the office and on the go. Broadcom provides manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices with the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything(R).

Broadcom is one of the world's largest fabless semiconductor companies, with annual revenue of more than $2 billion. The company is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at 1-949-450-8700 or at http://www.broadcom.com/.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:

All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates,""expects,""intends,""plans,""predicts,""believes,""seeks,""estimates,""may,""will,""should,""would,""could,""potential,""continue,""ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.

Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM5708 NetXtreme II controller products include, but are not limited to, general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for enterprise networking applications; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability, as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory; our ability to retain, recruit and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the positions and numbers, with the experience and capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; our ability to scale our operations in response to changes in demand for our products and services; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a cost-effective and timely manner; the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order; competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets; changes in our product or customer mix; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; the effects of new and emerging technologies; problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts; the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations, particularly in light of recent events; the effects of natural disasters, public health emergencies, international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.

Broadcom(R), the pulse logo, Connecting everything(R), the Connecting everything logo, and NetXtreme II(TM) are among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU. PCI Express(R) and PCI-X(R) are trademarks of PCI-SIG Corporation. Windows(R) is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Broadcom Trade Press Contact

Scott Harlin

Public Relations Manager

949-926-5226

sharlin@broadcom.com

Broadcom Investor Relations Contact

T. Peter Andrew

Sr. Director, Investor Relations

949-926-5663

andrewtp@broadcom.com

Broadcom Technical Contact

Allen Light

Product Line Manager

949-926-5744

alight@broadcom.com

Broadcom Corporation

CONTACT: Trade Press, Scott Harlin, Public Relations Manager,+1-949-926-5226, sharlin@broadcom.com, or Investor Relations, T. Peter Andrew,Sr. Director, Investor Relations, +1-949-926-5663, andrewtp@broadcom.com, orTechnical, Allen Light, Product Line Manager, +-1-949-926-5744,alight@broadcom.com, all of Broadcom Corporation

Web site: http://www.broadcom.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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