BCM5706

Description

The BCM5706 is the industry's first single-chip Gigabit Ethernet controller that integrates key server technologies including a TCP/IP Offload Engine, Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (RDMA), iSCSI, and remote management pass-through features on a single network device. BCM5706 enables servers to perform multiple functions simultaneously including storage networking, high-performance clustering, and "always on" remote management.

A standard server equipped with today's Ethernet controllers can not efficiently run network, storage and data traffic simultaneously, as it takes more than 80% of the CPUs processing power to process the network and storage protocols at the full 1 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) line rate. Broadcom's new BCM5706 NetXtreme II controller reduces CPU utilization to less than 20% by offloading the protocol processing from the CPU to the on-chip offload engines.

The BCM5706 is the first member of the NetXtreme II product family---the next generation of Gigabit Ethernet controllers from Broadcom that include C-NIC functionality. The BCM5706 builds upon Broadcom's successful line of NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet controllers (which recently reached a 25 million units shipment milestone) and is the industry's first and only device that combines a TCP/IP Offload Engine, iSCSI and RDMA, and a remote manageability port on a single chip. The implementation is optimized for high-density rack and blade server LAN-on-Motherboard (LOM) and Network Interface Card (NIC) applications, and allows customers to use existing layouts to upgrade their systems from the earlier generations of Broadcom controllers, such as the widely deployed BCM5703.