At OCP Summit 2023, we saw new switches from a new networking company, Micas Networks. The company specializes in what are effectively white box switches, but that does not mean they are low-end. The company’s demos had some of the higher-speed switches at the show. We even found a switch we reviewed when another company used Micas as the OEM.
Micas Networks 51.2T Broadcom Co-Packaged Optics Demo 800G Switches and More OCP Summit 2023
The first, switch is the Micas M2-W6920-4S. This is a 128x 100GbE switch. A big feature is that the chassis has four slots, three with 32x QSFP28 ports, but that is just one configuration.
An onboard Broadcom Tomahawk 3 25.6T switch and Intel Xeon D-1527 can power other options like SFP28 ports for 25GbE if a different module is used. This is one of Micas Networks’ flexible switches that we saw.
On the higher-end, we saw the Micas M2-W6940-128QC. This is a Broadcom Tomahawk 5 400GbE switch capable of 128x 400GbE ports.
Here is another view of the big 51.2T switch.
The management or control plane processor in this is the Intel Xeon D-1734NT which is one of the Ice Lake D series of processors. You can learn more about those processors here as well:
One of the bigger demos was a Broadcom Bailly demo with co-packaged optics. We saw Broadcom Tomahawk 5 based 51.2T Bailly Co-Packaged Optics Switch Shown previously, but here is one running in the Micas Networks booth at OCP Summit 2023.
Finally, we saw this switch a 64-port 400GbE switch called the Micas M2-S6930-64QC.
This switch may look familiar to regular STH readers. Aside from some paint, it looks very similar to the FS N9510-64D A 64x 400GbE switch. Our guess is that Micas Networks is the OEM that FS uses.
That was a fun one since we tore it down to the Broadcom Tomahawk 4 ASIC that was inside the switch.
We also had a video on the adventure of getting this all connected, as well as what was inside that you can find here.
That was a fun video to do.
Final Words
It was cool to see some of the 100GbE, 400GbE, and 800GbE switches from Micas Networks. Since we have actually reviewed one of the company’s OEM designs previously, we know that they have been designing and selling products for some time, but OCP Summit 2023 was the company’s coming-out party. They seem to be designing switches based on the popular Broadcom Tomahawk line and selling them as lower-cost white box alternatives. Hopefully, we can take a look at another one of their high-end switches in the future.
