Controller cuts power budget for 10Gbit/s Ethernet

Solarstorm is billed as the industry's lowest-power 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller, operating at just 2.2W.

Solarflare Communications is sampling Solarstorm, the industry's lowest-power 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller.

The Solarstorm controller operates at just 2.2W, setting the bar for low power.

In addition, the company introduced the industry's first standards-compliant 10GBase-T server adapter reference design, along with 10GBase-CX4 and XFP optical server adapter reference designs.

Because these reference designs hit the sweet spot of low power, high performance, standards compliance, and simplicity, they will accelerate the adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

The new Solarstorm controller delivers the optimal balance of performance, power, and price, enabling the widespread implementation of 10 Gigabit Ethernet in data centre and enterprise networks.

"The combination of Solarflare's new Solarstorm 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller and 10Xpress 10GBase-T PHY will enable our OEM customers to bring to market 10 Gigabit Ethernet server adapters at about the same cost as quad-port 1 Gigabit Ethernet server adapters".

"Such cost effectiveness will accelerate deployment of 10 Gigabit Ethernet", said Bruce Tolley, Vice President of Marketing at Solarflare.

"I am very impressed by the low power dissipation of the Solarstorm 10GbE controller" commented Bob Wheeler, Senior Analyst, The Linley Group.

"This is key for enabling the current generation of 10GBase-T PHYs to drive the full 100m distance, while staying well within the constraints of the 25W PCI Express limit".

Solarstorm is capable of leveraging Intel's QuickData Technology platform announced on 16th October 2006, at the Intel Developer's Forum in Taipei.

"Intel's QuickData Technology complements Solarflare's new high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller by minimising the system overhead associated with data movement to and from the network".

Jim Pappas, Director, DEG Technology Initiatives and Industry Marketing (TiiM) of Intel remarked: "Finding the right division of labour between the 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller and the motherboard chipset is key in designing a solution that will scale with time".

"A combination of enhancing the motherboard chipset with features like Intel's QuickData Technology and putting the right stateless offload features into the 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller provides a solution which preserves the network infrastructure, and removes the burden of deploying new protocols".

By enabling products from other companies to use the acceleration engine present in Intel Xeon 5100 series-based servers, Intel QuickData Technology helps the industry benefit from the increased speed, scalability, and server reliability that only Intel enterprise platforms can provide.

Solarflare is the only company sampling a 100m, standards compliant 10GBase-T PHY.

The IEEE 802.3an standard requires that all PHYs claiming compliance support 100m reach on Cat 6A cabling.

"Anixter recommends Category 6A cabling infrastructure for data centre applications, and is the only distributor that independently tests 6A cabling in the industry", stated Andy Jimenez, Vice President of Technology at Anixter, the world's leading distributor of communications products.

"Additionally, both the international and US standards (ISO 11801 and TIA/EIA 568-B) and the data centre standard (TIA/EIA 942) require 100 meter reach utilising four connector cabling topologies", Jimenez commented.

In addition to a 10GBase-T server adapter reference design, Solarflare is offering 10GBase-CX4 and optical (XFP) server adapter reference designs.

All the reference designs include schematics, bill of materials, layout files, critical components lists, and errata.

All three reference designs are available in a low profile PCI Express form factor.

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