Date: 10/06/2012

Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi SoCs for designing Gb speed wireless routers and NAS

Broadcom Corporation has unveiled System on a Chip (SoC) IC to deliver the potential of 5G WiFi with high-bandwidth Gigabit connectivity to the home and SMB network. The new Broadcom SoCs packs high performance processor, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch, GbE physical layer transceivers (PHYs), USB 3.0 and traffic accelerators all on a single chip.

The new StrataGX series for SMB routers and network attached storage (NAS) devices and the BCM4708x series for home routers and gateways achieve the Gigabit wireless rates that 5G WiFi can deliver. The resulting connectivity will enable multiple users in the home or office to simultaneously stream video content and high bandwidth application downloads 10x faster without the buffering and interruptions associated with current networks.

The new devices also feature Broadcom's Energy Efficient Ethernet functionality, delivering an additional 70 percent reduction in power consumption while networks are active and up to 95 percent during downtime, when two-thirds of energy costs are incurred.(2)

Key other Features:
Acceleration engines optimized for 5G WiFi and over-the-top (OTT) direct-from-provider video/audio content
5x processing horsepower with increased CPU headroom enables new applications such as cloud services(5)
Supports NFC, video/audio and network storage applications
Integrated GbE PHY/switch and regulators enable flexible, scalable solution for multiple GbE router platforms
USB 3.0 delivers up to 10x the transfer speed of USB 2.0 for high-speed storage

The StrataGX BCM5301x and the BCM4708x series are sampling with production release slated for the second half of 2012.