Gigabit Ethernet IP Phone Chip

Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
CTO
| VoIP & Gadgets blog - Latest news in VoIP & gadgets, wireless, mobile phones, reviews, & opinions

Gigabit Ethernet IP Phone Chip

Broadcom has announced what they claim is the world's first Gigabit Ethernet IP Phone Chip. The Broadcom chip is designed to sit within a VoIP phone, routing and encrypting calls as well as data to and from the PC. The chip is Broadcom's first to ship with its internally designed BroadSafe security suite, which provides hardware encryption for the call. According to Broadcom, the phone can also be used with a software VPN for increased security. Interestingly, it is also intelligent enough to block a flood of packets from a DDOS/DOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

Here's the release:

Broadcom Announces World's First Gigabit Ethernet IP Phone Chip
New Chip Eliminates Network Bottlenecks and Integrates Critical Features Required for Next-Generation Internet Protocol (IP) Phones, Including an Advanced Hardware Security Module for Encrypting Voice Calls

IRVINE, Calif., Jan 24, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions enabling broadband communications, today announced the industry's first Internet Protocol (IP) phone chip that incorporates Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switching, end-to-end security, advanced quality of service (QoS) techniques and increased processing performance in a single-chip design. This highly integrated IP phone chip features new Ethernet switching capabilities that enable deployed IP phones to achieve maximum throughput over GbE networks. Gigabit Ethernet technology is now becoming widely deployed in enterprise networks to support the increased bandwidth requirements of converged voice, video and data communications. The new Broadcom® Gigabit Ethernet IP phone chip is the successor to the company's field-proven Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) IP phone chip, which has been widely deployed in enterprise IP-PBX systems from leading equipment vendors worldwide.

"The deployment of Gigabit Ethernet connections within most enterprise PC shipments has rapidly occurred over the past year due to the demands for increased bandwidth to support voice, data and video services," said Sean Lavey, a program manager with IDC's semiconductor research. "IDC forecasts IP phone shipments will grow at a 42% compounded annual growth rate for the 2004- 2008 time period as more businesses install these feature-rich and more cost- effective VoIP systems. With IP phone adoption also on the rise, Gigabit Ethernet capability inside these new designs will also become a requirement to ensure that this faster speed will be readily available to the end user."

As networks migrate to Gigabit Ethernet, it will become essential for IP phones to operate at the same speed. This capability is especially critical in office environments where the IP phone resides between the network connection and the PC, and its integrated Ethernet switch (two external ports) supports both voice calls through the phone and data traffic to the PC using one Ethernet connection to each office. In this network configuration, the integrated switch in the IP phone dictates the speed of the network. If the network is operating at Gigabit Ethernet speeds, it becomes critical for the phone to also support the GbE rate to prevent a bottleneck between the local area network (LAN) and the PC.

"The integration of Gigabit Ethernet capability into next-generation IP phones is a natural progression in the evolution of Voice over IP within the enterprise," said Paul Shore, Director of Marketing for Broadcom's VoIP Client Devices. "In addition to bridging the gap between Gigabit Ethernet networks and IP phones, our new chip integrates a number of new features that will help to further accelerate the adoption of VoIP in the enterprise."

Product Information

The Broadcom BCM1103 IP phone chip enables manufacturers to build IP phones with integrated Gigabit Ethernet switching and other essential features to support improved voice quality, guaranteed voice security and graphics- driven applications that demand more processing power. The chip integrates a Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000 Mbps) switch and two Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) transceivers, allowing for the development of traditional Fast Ethernet IP phone designs without the additional cost of adding external transceivers. With the addition of external Gigabit Ethernet transceivers, manufacturers can easily upgrade their designs to create Gigabit Ethernet IP phone models.

Broadcom's IP phone chip is the company's first to include Broadcom's BroadSAFE™ security technology, which enables the secure transmission of voice packets without burdening the phone's RISC CPU. The BCM1103's hardware security module performs voice encryption and authentication and elevates the phone's system security using a unique identifier embedded in each chip that is virtually impossible to decode, hack, or steal, thereby providing assurance that the identity of each phone in the network is genuine. These advanced security features allow IT managers to ensure the integrity of corporate voice communications.

The chip's high-performance RISC processor and DSP support Broadcom's field-proven PhonexChange™ IP telephony software suite. PhonexChange is used across all of Broadcom's IP phone solutions, allowing BCM1101 IP phone customers to leverage their existing software development investments, therefore, minimizing time to market and development risks when designing in the BCM1103. The PhonexChange suite supports a wide variety of narrowband and wideband voice coders, including Broadcom's high-fidelity BroadVoice® coder, a high quality full-duplex speakerphone algorithm, advanced jitter buffer management and packet loss concealment techniques, and a complete library of standard telephony algorithms required for IP phone designs. The RISC processor in the BCM1103 further allows customers to add product- differentiating software to support applications such as web browsing, graphics rendering, instant messaging and presence features.

The chip further integrates a variety of IP phone peripherals including wideband-capable analog codecs (coder/decoder) with integrated amplifiers and provides flexible interfaces for external peripherals and memory types. This high level of integration reduces the phone's bill of material (BOM) costs and enables phone vendors to build scalable IP phone solutions using a single architecture.

To help BCM1103 customers bring products to market more quickly, Broadcom has developed the BCM911103SP IP phone reference design platform. This platform includes a complete Gigabit Ethernet IP phone reference design board that allows developers to utilize all of the features of the BCM1103. The reference board includes a housing that features a large graphics display and comes with Broadcom's PhonexChange firmware and example application code.

Pricing and Availability

The BCM1103 chip and BCM91103SP reference design are sampling today. The chip comes in a 420-pin PBGA lead-free package and is priced at $25 in 10K quantities.

Broadcom's Leadership Position in Voice IP Silicon Solutions

Broadcom's IP phone chips are the most advanced solutions in the industry, offering a range of both high-end, mid-range, and basic voice and data capabilities. These chips, coupled with Broadcom's proven Ethernet networking and VoIP gateway technologies, are enabling manufacturers to deliver economical solutions for migrating businesses to complete IP telephony systems. Broadcom's VoIP solutions are shipping in volume production today to leading manufacturers worldwide for deployment in enterprise IP phones, residential terminal adapters, voice-enabled cable and DSL residential gateways worldwide and Wi-Fi phones.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services. We design, develop and supply complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions incorporating digital, analog, radio frequency (RF), microprocessor and digital signal processing (DSP) technologies, as well as related hardware and software system-level applications. Our diverse product portfolio addresses every major broadband communications market and includes solutions for digital cable and satellite set-top boxes; high definition television (HDTV); cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) modems and residential gateways; high-speed transmission and switching for local, metropolitan, wide area and storage networking; home and wireless networking; cellular and terrestrial wireless communications; Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway and telephony systems; broadband network and security processors; and SystemI/O™ server solutions. These technologies and products support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 1-949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.



Featured Events