Broadcom BCM4908 Router SoC Supports 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, and Up to 3.4 Gbps Combined WiFi Speeds

While most of us are still talking about megabit per second (Mbps) when it comes to Internet connectivity, some are already enjoying higher maximum speeds of one or more Gigabit per second (Gbps) with services like Google Fiber or Comcast Gigabit Pro (2Gbps) in the US. That means one of the bottleneck include Gigabit Ethernet in most home settings, so to address higher network speeds at home and at the office, Broadcom has designed and unveiled BCM4908 quad core 64-bit ARM SoC for high-end routers that includes an interface for a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet PHY, and supports the company’s BCM4366 wave 2 5G WiFi MU-MIMO for up to 3.4 Gbps combined WiFi transfer rates across multiple devices.

2.5GbE_5GbE_Cables
Ethernet Cat. 5e, 6, and 6A Cables for 1 to 10 Gbps Ethernet

Some key features of BCM4908 processor include:

  • Quad core 64-bit ARM processor @ 1.8 GHz
  • Zero CPU Wi-Fi offload to free up CPU resources
  • BroadStream iQoS acceleration
  • Dedicated security processor to enable hardware VPN acceleration
  • 2.5Gb Base-X Ethernet WAN/LAN port for supporting fast connectivity to multi-gigabit modem or a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device
  • Peripherals – Integrated SATA III, two USB 3.0 ports and three PCIe Gen 2 ports
  • Low power – 28nm processor technology and advanced power management for more than 50% percent power usage reduction  compared to previous solutions
  • Support for Broadcom’s tri-band (AC5300) 5G WiFi XStream 802.11ac MU-MIMO with:
    • 3x BCM4366 4×4 radios, each with an integrated CPU for host offload processing
    • Providing a total of seven CPU cores (“Septacore”) with more than 9.6 GHz of CPU horse power
  • Hardware acceleration for routing and USB storage

Transfers are handled by Broadcom’s Runner network packet processor, which can handle more than 5 Gbps of system data throughput, freeing up the CPU for other tasks.

Broadcom BCM4908 is currently sampling, but other details have not been provided, and I could not find a product page yet.

Via EETimes

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4 Comments
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Elmer Fudd
Elmer Fudd
8 years ago

If there is WiFi offload in the WIFI chips, what does the offload in the BCM4908 do?
Seems like the offlaod is truly offloaded! 🙂

Tomm
Tomm
6 years ago

This is speculated next Raspberry Pi SoC, who knows… anyway in 2019 or later.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Tomm :
This is speculated next Raspberry Pi SoC

The above SoC is not a VideoCore IV (that’s what’s used on all those boring RPi since 2012, it’s basically the same outdated 2011 design) and does not even have any display/output capabilities. Good luck with breaking backwards compatibility (the only reason RPi is such a commercial success) and even more good luck with a headless RPi successor 😉

It shouldn’t also be that hard to imagine that the above SoC is way too expensive to be used on toys.

andre
andre
2 years ago

I hope this information helps the openwrt team to make a solution to my ax6000 – tp link router that uses the same processor.

Khadas VIM4 SBC