Networking silicon maker Solarflare Communications this week introduced a 10 Gigabit Ethernet transceiver that it says will enable vendors to build switches with a higher density of copper-based 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The 10GBase-T physical interface, or PHY, uses less than 6 watts of power and has a small footprint; both will help enable switches with up to 48 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet in one rack unit, the company says. They will also enable dual-port 10GBase-T network interface cards for servers using the PCIe power specification.

The PHY supports legacy copper cabling - Category 5 unshielded twisted pair included. The company says it can send 10 Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 5 for "patch-panel distances" of 1 to 3 meters. Cat 6 is supported for 55 to 100 meters, and Cat 6A will reach 100 meters, as per the standard.

The PHY is also the first 10GBase-T PHY to support Wake on LAN, according to Solarflare. And it can auto-negotiate speeds, using either 100Base-TX or 1000Base-T.

The company also unveiled an enhanced 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller. The controller is able to help avoid a performance hit when using virtualization software, supporting virtualization acceleration for VMware and Xen/Citrix. Its architecture supports up to 4,096 virtual machines per interface.

It also uses just 2.2 watts, leading Solarflare to claim that the combination of the PHY and the controller will yield a 10 Gigabit Ethernet NIC that uses half of the power of previous 10G NICs.

Solarflare says samples of the PHY will be available to switch manufacturers next month, while samples of the controller are available today.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.