ServerWorks acquisition key for Broadcom
Jack RobertsonBroadcom Corp. last week agreed to buy computer-chipset maker ServerWorks Inc. to serve as what may be the keystone of the networking chip makers the company has purchased in the last year.
Broadcom will acquire ServerWorks, Santa Clara, Calif., in a stock exchange valued at nearly $1 billion. The merger will help Broadcom fulfill a corporate strategy to dominate emerging 10-Gbit/s networks, with executives indicating the company has most of the pieces in place to build an integrated 10-Gbit/s solution at all network levels.
Yossi Cohen, director of marketing at Broadcom's high-speed network business unit, said 10-Gbit/s technology acquired through the purchase of other IC design firms will be embedded into a future ServerWorks core-logic chipset. In turn, various network ICs and software from more than a dozen Broadcom subsidiaries will be optimized to take advantage of the device.
“Broadcom is connecting all the dots to be ready for 10-Gbit/s networks,” said Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts Co., Tempe, Ariz. “ServerWorks could be the final piece of the puzzle, putting Broadcom for the first time into the highest level of networks.”
By contrast, Strauss said Intel Corp., which competes head-on with Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom in a bevy of different network-IC markets, still “has no clear focus for all its helter-skelter acquisitions. I think Broadcom is positioning itself far better to offer integrated network solutions at all network levels.”
Cohen said a new ServerWorks chipset will allow for a direct I/O connection to the CPU, which he claims is essential for 10-Gbit/s wireline speeds. He said even the 8-Gbit/s speed of the forthcoming PCI-X bus will become a choke point for enterprise and network servers in 2002, when four different 10-Gbit/s I/O systems hit the market: Ethernet, Fibre Channel, OC-192 Sonet, and Infiniband.
“We must replace the separate PCI-X bus with a direct I/O connection through the chipset to support all the new 10-Gbit/s systems,” Cohen said.
This assertion was disputed by Compaq Computer Corp.'s Roger Tipley, who is chairman of PCI-SIG (special interest group), which is working to develop the new PCI specifications. “The PCI-SIG will update specifications to meet customer needs of any I/O demands,” Tipley said. “We foresee PCI scaling far into the future and will be very difficult to beat by an upstart technology.”
The upcoming ServerWorks chipset is expected to be available in 2002 at the same time the next-generation I/O systems come on the market, according to David Pulling, ServerWorks' vice president of marketing. Technology acquired by Broadcom through two earlier purchases would be embedded by ServerWorks in the chipset for lower cost and higher performance, Cohen said.
Specifically, media-access-control technology coming from the acquisition of Allayer Communications will be integrated into the device, as will transceiver technology gained through the purchase of NewPort Communications. Cohen said the latter function is now implemented by other suppliers in silicon-germanium or gallium arsenide chips, but will be integrated at a much lower cost in the ServerWorks CMOS chipset, while offering better performance.
Many were surprised that Broadcom bought a computer-chipset maker-one that is a principal supplier of high-end PC-server chipsets to Broadcom competitor Intel. In fact, ServerWorks supplies almost all the core-logic chipsets for the Intel Xeon and other MPUs used in multiprocessor applications.
Despite the historic ties, ServerWorks' relationship with Intel became somewhat uncertain when the Santa Clara-based chip giant disclosed plans to make its own chipsets to support next-generation server processors. An Intel server road map obtained by EBN showed no ServerWorks chipsets scheduled to support processors in 2002.
In earlier interviews, ServerWorks executives said they intended to compete aggressively against Intel, once it became a competitor.
Intel has warrants to acquire up to a 5% interest in ServerWorks. Pulling said Intel hasn't exercised the warrants, which will remain in effect after the Broadcom acquisition.
Leave a ReplyCancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.Learn how your comment data is processed.
Advertisement
