Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp. has taken another step into storage.
The latest: A chip that helps transfer data inside storage units at one gigabyte per second, which Broadcom says is the first of its kind.
It’s the first chip resulting from Broadcom’s $16.5 million buy of Nashua, N.H.-based RAIDCore Inc. last year.
RAIDCore made software for RAID storage systems. RAID, or redundant array of independent disks, is touted as a faster, cheaper way to back up data on big corporate servers.
Before being bought by Broadcom, RAIDCore was working on technology known as serial advanced attachment interface. RAIDCore received $5 million in venture money for its serial advanced attachment interface development in 2003.
The novel way of connecting disk drives with personal computers and servers is used in Broadcom’s latest chip, named RAIDCore BC4852.
Broadcom is best known for chips that speed the flow of data over corporate networks, cable modems and wireless systems. Storage networks,banks of computers used by big companies alike to store data,are relatively new ground for Broadcom.
The company has been steadily building its storage offerings. With 2001’s acquisition of ServerWorks, Broadcom got into making serial advanced attachment interface controllers. It picked up broadband network processors with its 2000 buy of SiByte.
In 2003, Broadcom bought the assets of Santa Clara’s Gadzoox Networks Inc. Broadcom picked up the maker of switches for storage networks out of bankruptcy for nearly $9 million, a far cry from Gadzoox’s $2 billion market value in 1999.
Last year, it also made an $18 million buy of storage technology patents from Austin, Texas-based Cirrus Logic Inc.
But Broadcom is a small storage player in a market dominated by Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp., Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp. and San Jose’s Brocade Communications Systems Inc.
