Dell Ships Industry's First Servers with Broadcom Embedded Gigabit Network Connection on Motherboard.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 2001

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq:BRCM), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications, today announced that Dell Computer customers are first in the server market to benefit from the Broadcom(R) NetXtreme(TM) Gigabit Ethernet network connection, which enables the highest network performance available in any class server today.

Dell's recently announced PowerEdge(TM) 2550, a rack optimized 2U (3.5 inch) server, is the industry's first server to ship directly to customers from the factory with NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet embedded on the motherboard. Dell customers can also order the NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet network interface card (NIC) as an option on all Dell PowerEdge and most PowerApp(TM) Servers.

Broadcom's NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet provides a complete server networking solution that boosts network performance up to 10 times the level of equivalent Fast Ethernet solutions and offers an industry leading software suite designed to maximize server up time. Incorporating NetXtreme directly onto the motherboard improves the reliability and ease of use of servers while driving down their implementation cost, yielding the most economical and reliable solution for delivering high performance Gigabit (1000 Megabits per second/Mbps) speeds to servers for today's business enterprise networks.

"Gigabit Ethernet is rapidly becoming the standard network protocol for sending and receiving data over business enterprise networks," said Marty Colombatto, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Networking Business Unit. "Dell's introduction of embedded Gigabit Ethernet as a standard feature on the PowerEdge 2550 not only increases the performance characteristics of its servers, but also reduces implementation cost. This step demonstrates Dell's leadership position in developing the best cost performance server solutions."

"One of the biggest remaining bottlenecks in data center and Internet environments is low bandwidth network connections," said Randy Groves, Vice President and General Manager for High Volume Systems, Dell Enterprise Systems Group. "Broadcom's ability to develop innovative network solutions and our capability to embed NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet directly onto the PowerEdge 2550 motherboard and to offer it as a low cost upgrade on every Dell PowerEdge Server, helps customers address this critical bottleneck issue."

NetXtreme is the world's highest performance and most complete silicon and software solution for Gigabit Ethernet LAN on Motherboard (LOM) and NIC applications. It includes an IEEE 802.3ab compliant MAC and PHY transceiver chipset, which autonegotiates to the highest possible speed of 10, 100, and 1000 Mbps Ethernet. Independently conducted tests, recently performed by Ziff-Davis eTesting Labs, prove that NetXtreme leads the industry with better throughput and lower CPU utilization over competitive solutions: www.zdnet.com/etestinglabs/reports/broadcom.pdf

NetXtreme LOM and NIC solutions come with a comprehensive suite of software to help maximize server uptime, increase server performance, and ease management of the server's network connection. Broadcom's Advanced Server Control Suite software, which ships as part of the NetXtreme server solution, features heterogeneous NIC and LOM Fail Over, Smart Load Balancing, Generic Port Trunking, IEEE 802.3ad Port Aggregation, IEEE 802.3ac VLAN and Priority Tagging Configuration, Advanced Server Configuration Save/Store/Recover, Auto Cable Fault Detection and Diagnostics, as well as other standard NIC and LOM diagnostic functions.

Product Availability

The Dell PowerEdge 250 server began shipping from Dell last week. Additional information is available at www.dell.com/us/en/gen/ corporate/press/pressoffice_us_2001-03-26-aus-000.htm (Due to the length of this URL, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field). The NetXtreme NIC upgrade for other Dell PowerEdge servers is also available from Dell. Additional information is available at http://www.dell.com/poweredge.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is the leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, Broadcom designs, develops and supplies system-on-a-chip solutions for digital cable set-top boxes and 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.

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

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 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet product line include, but are not limited to, the timing and successful completion of technology and product development through volume production; general economic conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the effects of the current periodic downturn in the semiconductor industry; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for Gigabit Ethernet solutions; 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 the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, 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; and other factors.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Forms 8-K and 8-K/A, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss some of the important risk factors that may affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

Broadcom(R), NetXtreme(TM), SystemI/O(TM) and the pulse logo are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. Dell, PowerEdge and PowerApp are trademarks of Dell Computer Corporation. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.