Broadcom Delivers World's Lowest Power 10/100 Ethernet Transceiver.

Business Editors

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2000

Intelligent Power Management and 250mW Operation Extend Battery Life

in Portable Computers and Other Power Sensitive Applications

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling high-speed broadband communications to and throughout the home and business, today announced it is sampling the world's lowest power 10/100 Ethernet single-channel transceiver. Applications for the new chip include PCMCIA/CardBus adapters, LAN on Motherboard (LOM) applications, Internet Protocol (IP) phones, cable modems, set-top boxes, print servers, wireless access points, and embedded telecom equipment.

The Broadcom(R) BCM5221 Signi-(PHY)(TM) Single Channel 10/100 TX/FX Ethernet Transceiver also represents the industry's first 2.5 volt single-channel Fast Ethernet transceiver. The device slashes power consumption to only 250mW, enabling equipment vendors to build more reliable, lower cost networking equipment with increased network uptime. Intelligent Power Management automatically powers down the transceiver when not connected to the network, thereby prolonging battery life, and further reducing power requirements in portable and power sensitive applications. The BCM5221 also incorporates the HP Auto-MDIX feature, which automatically detects and corrects the polarity of crossed cables, resulting in simplified local area network (LAN) installation and maintenance.

"The BCM5221 is layout-compatible with Broadcom's BCM5201, providing our customers with an easy migration path to our latest, most advanced 10/100 transceiver technology," said Kevin Brown, Broadcom Product Line Manager. "This compatibility enables our customers to take immediate advantage of the lower power and enhanced features of the BCM5221."

The BCM5221 incorporates several Intelligent Power Management features, including three low-power modes with varying levels of power dissipation. The device is capable of powering down when not connected to the network, making it ideal for power sensitive applications, such as portable computer LOMs and PCMCIA/CardBus cards. For portable computer users, who typically do not remove their network PCMCIA/CardBus card when traveling or working remotely, this power down feature will significantly extend battery life. The BCM5221 can also be set to periodically power up at user-defined intervals, allowing the system to initiate "keep-alive" traffic on the network.

The BCM5221 provides manufacturers with Broadcom's latest transceiver technology, features and capabilities, including support for HP Auto-MDIX. Originally specified in the IEEE 802.3ab standard for Gigabit Ethernet over Category 5 cable, the HP Auto-MDIX feature enables the transceiver to automatically and transparently detect and correct the polarity of crossed cables. This feature is intended to simplify and reduce the cost of network installations, debug and maintenance. Broadcom also designed and tested the BCM5221 to withstand over 9kV of cable-sourced electrostatic discharge (CESD), which occurs when an electrically charged network cable is plugged into networking equipment. The CESD performance prevents the system from being destroyed due to this electric discharge during installation and cable insertion.

Broadcom's BCM5221 is also layout compatible with its predecessor, the BCM5201, which has been shipping in production for over two years. The layout compatibility enables customers to easily incorporate the BCM5221 into their existing BCM5201 designs and take immediate advantage of Broadcom's latest transceiver technology.

The chip supports both 2.5V and 3.3V operation with a single voltage supply source, which eliminates the need for additional power supply components. This simplifies system design, and lowers overall system cost. Additionally, a 2.5V solution improves system reliability by lowering the heat dissipated in the enclosure. This further reduces system cost by enabling manufacturers to use plastic enclosures and minimize the need for cooling fans. A glueless TX and FX media conversion enables manufacturers to directly connect two BCM5221's together to bridge a copper network to a fiber network without any external logic. The chip is also configurable with either RMII or MII standard interfaces, further simplifying the design by reducing the pin count to the MAC, and offering greater design flexibility.

The BCM5221 is based on Broadcom's field-proven 0.22 micron, Digi-(PHY)(TM) core architecture, which the company is already offering in its 6- and 8-port 10/100 Ethernet transceivers. Broadcom's Digi-(PHY) core is the world's most proven 10/100 PHY architecture, having been deployed worldwide in over 100 million Fast Ethernet ports. Over the past two and a half years, the same Digi-(PHY) architecture has been successfully implemented and proven in 0.5 micron, 0.35 micron, and 0.22 micron single-poly CMOS processes. The digital nature of Broadcom's Digi-(PHY) architecture is far more portable than competitive analog solutions, which must be redesigned as they migrate from one manufacturing process to another. It also allows for substantially higher test coverage, resulting in inherent advantages in manufacturing and outgoing quality. Broadcom's family of Digi-(PHY) 10/100 transceivers also offers the world's highest level of outgoing quality, at well below 10 parts per million (PPM).

The BCM5221 Signi-(PHY)(TM) Single Channel 10/100 TX/FX Ethernet Transceiver is available today, and is priced at $7 in 1000 unit quantities. It is offered in both 64-pin TQFP and 64-pin fpBGA packages.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is the leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital transmission of voice, video and data to and throughout the home and within the business enterprise. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the company designs, develops and supplies integrated circuits for a number of the most significant broadband communications markets, including the markets for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed office networks, home networking, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), residential broadband gateways, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL). Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.

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This release may contain forward-looking statements based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will" and variations of these words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.

Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM5221 product include, but are not limited to, the timing and successful completion of technology and product development through volume production; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for high speed networking products; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in the foregoing markets; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders; the loss of a key customer; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; silicon wafer pricing and the availability of foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims; fluctuations in our manufacturing yields and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; our ability to specify, develop, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a timely manner; the effects of new and emerging technologies; the effectiveness of our product cost reduction efforts; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; 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 risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations; our ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; changes in our product or customer mix; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; the effects of natural disasters and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; potential business disruptions, claims, expenses and other difficulties resulting from "Year 2000" problems in computer-based systems used by us, our suppliers or our customers; general economic conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address; and other factors.

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