Momentum builds behind 10 Gigabit Ethernet

The market research firm, which focuses on the chip level, says that one look at the vendors shows that momentum has already moved from Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The market has already consolidated around a few major vendors, and start-ups have taken up the banner for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Linley says.

The firm notes that while Broadcom is the big name when it comes to Gigabit Ethernet components, the dominance has not yet carried over into 10 Gigabit, and Linley names AMCC, Aquantia, Fujitsu and Solarflare as competitors doing interesting things in that arena.

The infrastructure market for Gigabit Ethernet chips increased 15% in 2007 and will grow about 12% this year, Linley says. But that growth should slow in 2009.

Fueling the transition to 10 Gigabit is data center networking, with large numbers of servers requiring network connections. LAN aggregation is another factor - something that is held up as a reason for moving to each new, higher speed of Ethernet. As end devices are connected at a high speed (in this case, Gigabit Ethernet), a higher speed is required to aggregate all of those connections (in this case, 10 Gigabit Ethernet). Writes The Linley Group:

"These trends will drive the need for higher port counts, Layer 3 switching, and security features… In 2009, the combination of 10GbE switch chips, optical PHYs, and 10GBase-T adoption should make 10GbE a meaningful portion of overall Ethernet switch/PHY revenue."

The firm's findings echo those of the Dell'Oro Group, which a couple of months ago noted that 10 Gigabit Ethernet passed two milestones.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.