Broadcom Heralds New Chip for Broad-Band

Expanding its role in the booming market for broad-band services in the workplace, Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. will unveil a new chip today to bring faster delivery of video, voice and data over high-speed office and home computer networks.

The chip will be used in multilayer switches--which route data from one point to another--and handle the same technical workload of as many as 10 separate chips.

This StrataSwitch chip is the first product Broadcom has released that incorporates technology developed by San Jose-based Maverick Networks, a developer of inexpensive network switching technology Broadcom acquired earlier this year. Broadcom expects to begin shipping the chips by the end of the fourth quarter.