Broadcom has delivered the StrataXGS Tomahawk 5 switch series, providing 51.2 Terabits / sec of Ethernet switching capacity in a single, monolithic device, double the bandwidth of any other switch silicon available on the market today.
“Delivering the world’s first 51.2 Tbps switch two years after we released Tomahawk 4, the industry’s first 25 Tbps switch, is a testament to the outstanding execution and innovation by the Broadcom team,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom.
“Since the introduction of Tomahawk 1 in 2014, Broadcom has executed on doubling the bandwidth approximately every two years. A single Tomahawk 5 replaces forty-eight Tomahawk 1 switches in the network, resulting in over 95 percent reduction in power requirements.”
Broadcom said Tomahawk 5 provides AI/ML workload virtualization with features such as single-pass VxLAN routing and bridging. Critical to minimizing job completion time (JCT) for AI/ML workloads, Tomahawk 5 offers features such as Broadcom Cognitive Routing, advanced shared packet buffering, programmable inband telemetry, and hardware-based link failover.
Tomahawk 5’s Cognitive Routing improves network link utilization by automatically and dynamically selecting the most lightly loaded links in the system for every flow that transverses the switch. This is especially important for AI/ML workloads which often have a combination of short-lived mice flows and long-lived, high bandwidth elephant flows with low entropy.
Tomahawk 5 includes real-time dynamic load balancing that tracks the utilization of all links, both at the switch and downstream in the network, to determine the optimal path for each flow. It also monitors the health of links in hardware and automatically steers traffic away from failed links. These features provide dramatically improved network utilization and reduced congestion, resulting in shortened JCT.
Tomahawk 5 enables a direct 100G PAM4 interface to direct attach copper (DAC), front panel pluggable optics, and co-packaged optics. Tomahawk 5 SerDes provides DAC connectivity to all devices within a rack, and even between racks, without the need for retimers or other active components.
Tomahawk 5 will be made available with co-packaged optics using Broadcom’s Silicon Photonics Chiplets in Package (SCIP) platform, providing more than 50 percent decrease in the power needed for optical connectivity. Customers can choose the optimal I/O for each part of their intra-cluster, inter-cluster, and inter-DC networks with no software porting required.