Vitesse Debuts 65nm EcoEthernet SparX-III Silicon

Vitesse Semiconductor introduced its new SparX-III family of Gigabit Ethernet (GE) switching silicon designed for green-enabled Ethernet SMB and enterprise equipment with substantially lower power consumption and higher density.


The launch includes a two chip 25-port GE switch solution that can be paired with Vitesse's recently launched SimpliPHY 12-port Gigabit Ethernet PHY with dual media copper and fiber support. Both devices feature Vitesse's EcoEthernet 2.0 technology, which offers energy efficiency capabilities such as a "PerfectReach" intelligent cable length algorithm, "ActiPHY" automatic link-power down, as well as IEEE 802.3az idle power savings.


Leveraging Vitesse's 65-nm technology, the SparX-III family delivers power dissipation of <400mW/port for 1000BASE-T copper and below 50 mW/port for fiber. This eliminates the need for a cooling fan, reducing cost and noise, and increasing system reliability. In addition, customers leverage their hardware and software investment for 16- and 10-port GE switches using the pin-compatible VSC7421 and VSC7420.


SparX-III also provides an innovative low latency architecture, which improves network performance for time-sensitive applications like IPTV, VoIP, IP conferencing, and gaming. Other new built-in features such as hardware network loop detect and an overheat protection functionality allow ODMs and OEMs to further augment system reliability.
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