Broadcom's Optical Communications System-on-a-Chip Technology Delivers World's First Single-Chip, OC-48 Line Card.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2001

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq:BRCM)

Advanced OC-48 CMOS Transceiver and Framer Technology Provide

Building Blocks for Highly Integrated, Low Power,

Compact OC-48 Line Card Solutions

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq:BRCM), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications, today announced the world's first system-on-a-chip (SoC) product that integrates all of the electronics required for an entire SONET OC-48 (2.5 Gbps/Gigabits per second) line card onto a single piece of silicon.

This product, which was developed for a major optical networking OEM, sets a new industry benchmark for integration and power reduction. Broadcom's SOC technology provides optical equipment vendors with an 80% reduction in power and a 90% savings in board space when used in optical networking equipment such as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) routers and optical switches. Manufacturers of next-generation SONET equipment can translate the significant power and space savings provided by this chip into higher port density systems, making it possible for telecommunication operators to install more ports in a smaller space to support the explosive demand for additional bandwidth in Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs).

Broadcom's SoC technology leverages its expertise in developing advanced OC-48 CMOS transceivers that feature the lowest total system power consumption and noise immunity and the highest level of integration of any comparable devices. By integrating this core transceiver technology with over a million gates of digital logic, Broadcom has developed a "line card-on-a-chip" that exceeds the SONET jitter requirements by a 50% margin. Manufactured in a 0.18-micron standard CMOS process, this single chip line card solution achieves higher levels of integration and consumes significantly less power than competitive multi-chip Gallium Arsenide, Bipolar or Silicon Germanium solutions.

"Broadcom's SoC product offerings for WAN equipment manufacturers are a natural extension of our existing custom integration program for the enterprise networking equipment market," said Marty Colombatto, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Networking Business Unit. "This advanced capability extends our custom integration activities into the MAN and WAN markets and continues our path toward providing strategic customers with the highest level of integration and performance optimized for their system requirements."

Broadcom's SoC device integrates all of the electronics required for an OC-48 line card. Competing solutions require up to five chips to perform a similar level of functionality. Major functions of the integrated chip include an OC-48 transceiver, a framer, an overhead processing engine for section, line and path termination, a fully channelized pointer processor, and a dual 2.5 Gbps backplane transceiver. In addition, this single-chip product has a power dissipation of only 1.2 Watts and a form factor of only 27 mm by 27 mm, making it the lowest power, most compact, highest performance device in its class.

Broadcom is currently implementing its SoC technology into custom single-chip OC-48 line cards for major optical networking OEMs. Broadcom offers an extensive library of optical transport IP cores that include an OC-48 POS, ATM and TDM framers, Reed-Solomon FEC encoder/decoder, OC-48 transceiver, FEC-rate OC-48 transceiver, 2.5 Gbps backplane transceiver, 622 Mbps LVDS drivers, and POSPHY Level 3 interfaces. All of Broadcom's optical transport IP cores have been extensively tested and characterized in silicon.

Broadcom announced the world's first OC-48 CMOS transceiver in July 1999 and to date has the broadest product offering of CMOS devices for the SONET/SDH communications market. This advanced family of OC-48 CMOS transceivers today consists of the Broadcom(R) BCM8210, BCM8211, BCM8212 and BCM8220. Key features in all of these chips include an internal FIFO (First In, First Out) and two integrated phase-locked loop clock generators, a clock and data recovery (CDR) unit and a clock multiplication unit (CMU). The 2.5 Gbps data and clock interfaces are differential Current Mode Logic (CML) and are designed to drive 50-ohm transmission lines with out any external matching resistor.

Other significant features of the Broadcom OC-48 CMOS transceivers include the following:

-- BCM8210: The industry's first single-chip OC-48 CMOS transceiver with a
16-bit, 155 Mbps Low Voltage Positive Emitter Coupled Logic (LVPECL) interface.
This device consumes 1.16W of power and is offered in a 128-pin PQFP package.

-- BCM8211: The industry's first single-chip OC-48 CMOS transceiver with
selectable 16-bit, 155 Mbps LVPECL or internally terminated CMOS I/O
(Input/Output) logic system interfaces. The chip includes dual receive and
transmit 2.5 Gbps serial inputs for dual fiber ring architectures and a line
and system loop back capability. The BCM8211 consumes 1.16W of power and is
offered in a 128-pin PQFP package.

-- BCM8212: A single-chip OC-48 CMOS transceiver with a 16-bit, 155 Mbps LVPECL
interface and an integrated clean up phase locked loop. The BCM8212 supports
the same features as the BCM8211 except for the CMOS I/O logic interface. The
device consumes 1.3W of power and is packaged in a 208-pin BGA package.

-- BCM8220: The industry's smallest OC-48 CMOS transceiver with a 4-bit, 622
Mbps Low Voltage Differential Signal (LVDS) interface -- the preferred
interface for next generation SONET equipment. The compact 11 x 11 mm 100-pin
BGA package makes the BCM8220 the first transceiver to fit directly behind a
Small Form Factor (SFF) laser module, measuring only 14 x 48 mm. As a result of
the LVDS interface, the BCM8220 consumes only 550 mW of power -- the lowest in
its class. The chip is also available in a 100-pin PQFP package.

Pricing and Availability

Broadcom's OC-48 CMOS transceiver chips are available today. In 1000-piece quantities, the BCM8210 is $155, BCM8211 is $165, BCM8212 is $185, and BCM8220 is $150. All of the SoC building blocks are also available today for custom integration applications.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is the leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital transmission of voice, video and data. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the company designs, develops and supplies system-on-a-chip solutions for broadband communications markets. Broadcom products enable communications for applications in cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed local, metropolitan, and wide area and optical networks, home networking, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), carrier access, residential broadband gateways, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, digital subscriber lines (xDSL), wireless communications, System I/O(TM) server solutions and network processing. Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.

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