- Cisco Systems announced it is now supplying switch chips to data center operators. These are the details.
Cisco Systems announced it is now supplying switch chips to data center operators, including AT&T, Microsoft, and Facebook. This new offering will enable Cisco to win orders from some of the largest networking equipment customers. The new offering is called Cisco Silicon 1 and it was announced at an event in San Francisco this week. Cisco said that Cisco Silicon 1 is the fastest in the industry and it is now available to all of its customers.
Shifting towards standalone chip sales is a different model for Cisco as the company has been known to sell proprietary hardware and software combinations to generate most of its revenue. And this new offering may attract business from customers that want to build their own machines. Cisco Silicon 1 also makes Cisco a bigger rival against Intel and Broadcom. Both of those companies also make switch chips that Cisco uses in its products.
To develop these chips, Cisco spent over $1 billion in the past five years. And Cisco had to ensure that it designed chips that would be compatible with data center hardware from a variety of companies.
“Some of our customers will buy our silicon and build their own products if that’s what they choose to do,” said Cisco Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins at the event via Bloomberg. “We really want our customers to consume this technology in any way they want.”
Switch chips decide where to send packets of data in a network of computers. And switch chips are designed to handle that task at a rapid pace. Broadcom is known as the biggest provider of switch chips as an individual component. And then, Intel gained market share in June when it acquired Barefoot Networks.
Cisco’s new offering is going to combine the attributes of switch and routing chips. And it will move data very quickly while still being programmable by carrying the ability to have its function changed.
Routing — which is directing traffic between networks — is generally conducted by a group of chips. But it is not fast enough for modern Internet traffic loads. The Cisco Silicon 1 chip can provide all of these functions and it simplifies the operation of networks by eliminating the need for different layers of software.
At the event, Cisco also unveiled a new router machine, which is designed to serve 5G cellular networks. And the Cisco 8000 is going to be based on the new chip.
Plus Cisco also revealed its plans for products that support faster data transmission speeds over fiber-optic cables. And Cisco is also positioning itself to provide equipment for the surge in Internet traffic and substantial data created from mobile systems.
