Broadcom Announces Single-Chip Security Processors

Irvine, CA -- Broadcom Corporation announced its next-generation line of security processors that combine IP Security (IPSec) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol processing, cryptographic acceleration, and hardware-based identity management and authentication into a single-chip solution. By incorporating this level of advanced functionality into a single-chip design, Broadcom's new highly integrated security "protocol" processors can be utilized for applications such as enterprise routing and e-commerce transactions and are optimized for SSL-based appliances, firewall appliances, and mid- to high-end virtual private networks (VPNs).

"Broadcom's new CryptoNetX security protocol processors, with increased performance, functionality and versatility, enable our customers to integrate security into their existing networks in a way that is more secure, simple, scalable and cost-effective," said Joe Wallace, Senior Director of Broadcom's Security Line of Business. "Broadcom's latest product offerings provide strong network security without a trade-off in performance, reinforcing our commitment to satisfy our customers' present and future security processing requirements."

Announced today are three new security protocol processors (the BCM5860, BCM5861 and BCM5862) that include either PCI-X(R) or PCI Express(R) host bus architectures. Each of these new chips provides high-performance cryptographic acceleration and the ability to offload a significant amount of security processing functions from the host processor, resulting in higher performance and optimal CPU utilization. The BroadSAFE technology included in each chip provides secure key storage and usage functionality which is essential to guard against hacking, identity theft and virus attacks on enterprise networks. This functionality eliminates the need to have a dedicated hardware security module in each client device and, therefore, can reduce the cost of complying with the FIPS standard to nearly nothing.

"Broadcom has taken a great leap forward with its new security protocol processors," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "With IPSec protocol processing, SSL record layer processing, and BroadSAFE, these products address the growing need for stronger security without impacting network performance. The performance of the BCM586x products hits the sweet spot of the market today, making them strong choices for most customers."

The performance can reach up to 2 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of IPSec protocol processing and 14,000 RSA transactions per second. The CryptoNetX security protocol processors offer direct handling of IPv4 and IPv6 packets in IPSec applications, as well as SSL record processing support. As a result, they can be seamlessly integrated into customer VPN and SSL applications.

SOURCE: Broadcom Corporation