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Broadcom BCM57416 · PCIe x4 · 2×RJ45 （RDMA Cameras）

05/25/2026

Broadcom BCM57416 PCIe x4 2xRJ45 Dual 10G Copper Project

PROJECT / PROTOTYPE

Dual 10G Copper Project
Broadcom BCM57416 PCIe x4 2xRJ45

Private cloud / storage / virtualization rack servers over Cat6a cabling, with VXLAN, RSS, TSS, SR-IOV, and RoCE offload features

StatusProject evaluation Product formPCIe 3.0 x4, 2xRJ45, 10GBASE-T ChipBroadcom BCM57416, NetXtreme-E series

Key point: For NVMe-over-Fabric, AI storage, CDN, and 1G-to-25G/100G migration scenarios, the BCM57416 delivers a cost-effective enterprise offload dual 10G copper NIC. It uses Cat6a/Cat6 cabling for both ports, reaches 10G at 100 m, and only consumes a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot instead of a scarce x8 slot. It also supports the latest GIGE3 standard cameras (GigE Vision 3.0) with low-latency 10GBASE-T frame capture, making it suitable for high-speed industrial vision systems.

1. Product Block Diagram

The diagram shows the prototype 2xRJ45 / PCIe x4 functional architecture. The BCM57416 acts as a dual 10GBASE-T MAC+PHY controller behind a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface; each MAC connects to one RJ45 copper port. Clocking, EEPROM/Flash, LED indicators, and NC-SI management are also shown.

Figure 1: Product functional block diagram — PCIe x4 ↔ BCM57416 ↔ dual RJ45 copper

What the BCM57416 Actually Provides

Chip	Broadcom BCM57416, dual 10GBASE-T MAC+PHY, NetXtreme-E series
Host interface	PCI Express 3.0 x4, 8 GT/s; fits x4 / x8 / x16 slots
Ports	2x RJ45, 10 / 5 / 2.5 / 1 Gbps + 100 Mbps negotiation, NBASE-T / 802.3bz
Cabling	Cat6a 100 m @10G / Cat6 55 m / Cat5e supports 5G
Offload	TruFlow™ TCP/UDP/IPv4/IPv6 checksum, TSO, LRO, RSC, RSS / TSS
Virtualization	SR-IOV up to 128 VFs per device, NPAR 16 PFs, VMware NetQueue, Hyper-V VMQ
Overlay offload	VXLAN / NVGRE / Geneve / GRE encapsulation and decapsulation; lowers CPU utilization up to 90%
Storage / boot	iSCSI / UEFI / PXE boot, NC-SI management; supports RDMA (RoCE v2) for low-latency storage and GIGE3 camera zero-copy streaming
DCB	PFC / ETS / QCN / DCBX, 8 traffic classes per port
Security	BroadSAFE® silicon root of trust, secure firmware, hardware tamper protection for enterprise PCIe NIC
Power efficiency	EEE 802.3az, ACPI, low-power idle mode
Frame size	Jumbo Frames up to 9 KB / 9600 bytes
Size / temperature	Standard PCIe full-height and low-profile bracket; controller 0C to 55C / storage -40C to 70C

Note: BCM957416 is the PCIe x8 reference NIC. This project uses an x4 routing dual 10G copper card. At 20 Gbps aggregate, PCIe 3.0 x4 provides 32 Gbps of theoretical bandwidth; after protocol overhead and host sideband traffic, the margin is tight but acceptable for dual-port 10G with hardware offloads. RDMA (RoCE v2) is particularly beneficial for GIGE3 camera applications, enabling CPU-bypass, zero-copy image data transfer to host memory with deterministic latency.

Protocol Offload Layering

The enterprise value of BCM57416 is moving protocol processing away from the CPU. The diagram below shows the offload layering.

Figure 2: MAC+PHY, overlay offload, protocol offload, and CPU application logic architecture

3. Current Project Status

✅ Chip selection / BOM completed ✅ Schematic V1 ready: PCIe x4 / dual PHY / LED / EEPROM / NC-SI preset 🔄 PCB Layout review: 4-layer, RJ45 EMI optimization 🔜 10G signal integrity test / Cat6a 100 m stress test / SR-IOV VF test / RoCE small-packet throughput 🔜 Driver validation: Linux bnxt_en / bnxt_re, Windows Server, VMware

4. Target Applications

Private cloud / virtualization nodes: dual-port bond + overlay offload
Video / NAS direct storage: rack servers with PCIe x4 slot get two 10G ports, saving x8 slots
Edge AI clusters: short-depth 1U/2U nodes, copper 10G lowers cabling cost
Legacy upgrade: replaces X540/X550 cards with RJ45 10G at lower power and simpler cabling
Machine vision / industrial cameras: supports GIGE3 standard cameras (GigE Vision 3.0) with RDMA (RoCE v2) zero-copy streaming for multi-camera synchronization and low-latency image transfer

Editor note: BCM57416 is not a 25G chip. Its value is "10G copper + TruFlow offload + PCIe x4 low-cost form factor". In 2026 enterprise projects, x4 dual-port low-power cards with NC-SI management are attractive for private cloud / SDS / edge nodes, similar to the Supermicro AOC-CTG-b2T approach. The addition of GIGE3 camera support and RDMA (RoCE v2) makes this platform also compelling for modern industrial vision and real-time inspection systems.