Broadcom OctalPHY Extends Ethernet to 500 Meters on Cat5

Broadcom introduced an eight-port octal physical layer (PHY) device that extends the reach of Ethernet over twisted pair cables. The new 65 nanometer CMOS octal PHY enables 10/100 Ethernet to operate over extended distances (up to 500 meters) on one, two or four wire pairs of Category 5 (CAT 5) or telephony grade cabling. The technology supports traditional Ethernet services over a single twisted wire pair.



Broadcom said in contrast to previous technologies that extended the range of Ethernet over twisted pair, its BroadR-Reach approach enables every BroadR-Reach port to also support IEEE 802.3-compliant technologies such as 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T. As a result, BroadR-Reach provides interoperability and connectivity to standard 10/100/1000BASE-T devices over distances up to 100 meters while extending 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps operations to 500 meters. Additionally, BroadR-Reach technology works with Power over Ethernet (PoE) to support applications such as security camera surveillance.



The Broadcom BCM54880 octal Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) PHY is the first member of Broadcom's GbE BroadR-Reach family of copper PHY products and includes eight 10/100/1000BASE-T and BroadR- Reach transceivers integrated on a single 65nm CMOS chip. The BCM54880 includes eight SGMII serial media access controller interfaces and eight copper ports, whereby each copper port supports one, two or four twisted pair line connections. Sampling is underway.

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