Broadcom Limited today announced it is now sampling the industry’s first NVMe/SAS/SATA controllers and its unmatched NVMe software portfolio, underscoring Broadcom’s leadership and commitment to data center innovation and excellence. NVMe brings latency improvements in SSD technology. As the market leader in SAS/SATA storage connectivity, Broadcom is delivering on its strategy to enable data centers to take full advantage of NVMe SSD performance. The portfolio includes:
- PCIe Switches: Leading provider of PCIe Switches with over 120 Million ports shipped.
- NVMe Server/JBOF Management Software: Used with our NVMe Switches, the solution software accelerates and simplifies the development of robust NVMe based servers/JBOF.
- NVMe Storage Adapters (HBA/RAID): As the leading provider of SAS/SATA storage controllers, HBA, and RAID adapters, Broadcom is sampling the industry’s first combined NVMe/SAS/SATA storage controllers.
- NVMe SSD Controllers: Leading manufacturer of custom SSD controllers with greater than 50% share of the enterprise NVMe SSD's deployed and over a dozen NVMe SSD controllers in production.
Broadcom’s 6th generation PCIe Switches (PEX 9700) provide a robust and scalable solution to deploy NVMe drives in servers and external storage systems. The PEX 9700 series offers seven models from 12 to 97 lanes and industry-first features including NVMe surprise add/remove, sharing across multiple hosts with failover, and advanced QoS capabilities. Combining advanced management software and a proven software development tool kit, Broadcom PCIe switches enable server and storage OEM/ODMs to quickly deliver enterprise-ready NVMe storage connectivity solutions.
Broadcom’s NVMe/SAS/SATA Storage Adapter brings NVMe performance benefits to the storage tier by providing connectivity and data protection that MegaRAID has provided for over 20 years for SAS/SATA interfaces. Broadcom has developed the industry’s first storage controller with Tri-Mode SerDes, enabling system designs to support any combination of NVMe, SAS and SATA devices. This controller provides up to a 50% latency reduction and a 60% throughput increase compared to its previous generation. Broadcom is now sampling the industry’s first NVMe hardware RAID solution.
Broadcom’s latest suite of custom SSD controller IP tightly integrates all layers of the NVMe protocol, PCIe controller, and SerDes physical layer achieving the industry’s most advanced power management, configurability, and performance. Broadcom continues to advance its custom SSD IP portfolio with the latest FinFET process technology along with development of PCIe Gen4 NVMe products.
“Intel and Broadcom share an extensive history of partnership and design collaboration from over a decade of PCIe switch development as well as Broadcom delivering SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards for five generations of Intel server models,” said Tom Swinford, senior vice president and general manager, Data Center Solutions Group, Broadcom. “We are heavily investing in next-generation NVMe that will create an advanced storage ecosystem with even greater performance capabilities.”
“Intel is fully committed to making the CPU-efficient, low latency NVMe interface the preferred choice for solid-state drives,” said Bill Leszinske, vice president of Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. “We have a large set of customers who are working jointly with Broadcom and Intel to ramp NVMe-based designs, and Broadcom’s new products are enabling easier deployment of high drive count configurations of NVMe SSDs in both performance server and high availability dual-ported storage systems.”
Broadcom Limited is the trusted market leader in storage connectivity and continues to invest and innovate in the industry’s broadest product portfolio. These include PCIe & NVMe switches, NVMe/SAS/SATA controllers and SAS/SATA expanders, HBAs, RAID adapters, Fibre Channel silicon, software and adapters, HDD/SSD SoCs and HDD preamps. With a 25-year history delivering high quality silicon, advanced firmware, innovative board design, and extensive HDD/SSD validation processes, Broadcom is the leading supplier of choice for server and external storage OEMs, system builders and hyperscale customers.