Sunday, May 28th 2023
MaxLinear's 8-port 2.5 Gbps Switch is Tiny Single-chip Solution
TPU managed to get an early sneak peek of MaxLinear's recently announced 8-port 2.5 Gbps switch IC, ahead of Computex official start tomorrow. The MXL86280 is going to bring some serious competition to the 2.5 Gbps switch market, as thanks to it being a single chip solution that integrates the Ethernet MAC and PHY, costs can be kept lower than competing two chip solutions that have a separate MAC and PHY. Although we weren't giving exact pricing, we were told that the MXL86280 should allow for more affordable 2.5 Gbps switches than those available in the market today, but not quite as affordable as the equivalent Gigabit switch.
MaxLinear also appears to have been fortunate with their chip design, as everything was working at the first tape-out, which is less common than you'd think when it comes to advanced chips The MXL86280 will be the first in what is expected to be a series of 2.5 Gbps switch solutions from MaxLinear, as the company is planning to release 5- and 6-port solutions in the future, which the company is hoping to win business in the router market space with. The test board that the company will have on display during Computex also features a pair of 2.5 Gbps SFP+ ports, which should be ideal for those with older 2.5 Gbps routers, cable modems or GPON equipment that only has fibre outputs. That said, the exact design of retail products might differ, so we'll have to wait and see what kind of products launch next year based on the MXL86280.
MaxLinear also appears to have been fortunate with their chip design, as everything was working at the first tape-out, which is less common than you'd think when it comes to advanced chips The MXL86280 will be the first in what is expected to be a series of 2.5 Gbps switch solutions from MaxLinear, as the company is planning to release 5- and 6-port solutions in the future, which the company is hoping to win business in the router market space with. The test board that the company will have on display during Computex also features a pair of 2.5 Gbps SFP+ ports, which should be ideal for those with older 2.5 Gbps routers, cable modems or GPON equipment that only has fibre outputs. That said, the exact design of retail products might differ, so we'll have to wait and see what kind of products launch next year based on the MXL86280.
4 Comments on MaxLinear's 8-port 2.5 Gbps Switch is Tiny Single-chip Solution
Reminds me the first time I held an Intel i210T in my hands.
The actual chip was so much smaller than the previous generation(s) of Ethernet PHY, and many external board components were integral in the chip.
I mean, I understand a chip can't fix what's wrong at the other end of the wire, but maybe the designers can use a few drops of magic sauce and, if an Intel chip is somehow detected at the other end, do something to reduce the probability of dropped connections. Limit the data rate to less than 2.5 Gbit/s, or something.