In 1973, the United States launched Skylab, its first space station, and Pink Floyd sang about the “Dark Side of the Moon.” The same year, a technology was born that would revolutionize computing for the next several generations. This month, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Ethernet.

That ubiquitous blue cable turns 40 on May 22.

Ethernet, the family of networking standards that enables computers to locally connect to each other, is still the ultra-strong backbone to the many networks we use every day. Its use has extended beyond the enterprise of the 1990s to encompass service provider and home networks — and now it’s become the fabric of next-generation data centers. And its use is ever expanding, bringing connectivity capabilities beyond the business, service provider and data center networks — even to the open road.

At Broadcom, we’re constantly looking ahead at technologies that will change the way people work and play. But every once in a while, it’s nice to look back, to reflect and to remember the strides that we’ve taken and how they’ve had an impact. Next week, Broadcom Co-Founder, Chief Technical Officer and Chairman Henry Samueli will speak at an event being held at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, a region where Ethernet is being celebrated all month.

Back in the Day

Tech-biz old-timers like to reminisce about how Ethernet got its start at the infamous Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. Back then, it relied on 10BASE5 — a fat coaxial cable with extra shielding that looked something like a stiff garden hose — and a slow Bus topology network that moved data at a rate slower than 10 megabits per second.

Where Ethernet was born: A scene from Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in 1975. Photo courtesy of PARC Inc., via the Computer History Museum.

That seems tortoise-like compared to Broadcom’s offerings of 100 gigabit speeds today, but it was an amazing feat at the time. Several companies quickly hopped on the Ethernet train and that collaboration and interoperability made it a quick candidate for standardization by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

In the ensuing years, Ethernet has undergone several dramatic makeovers — each time emerging as a technology even better suited to meet the demands of burgeoning and increasingly complex computer networks.

Over time, the cables got thinner — from the size of a garden hose down to the size of TV Coax, to Cat 5 twisted pair and eventually to fiber optic media. It also got easier to deploy. And Moore’s Law’s trajectory ensured that the data transfer rates grew ever-speedier.

By 1995, a fast-growing communications startup called Broadcom had launched the world’s first 10/100 Ethernet chip and, in 2000, would launch the first 10 gigabit CMOS transceiver.

Today, gigabit Ethernet is standard in local area networks — it’s plenty fast for home and office. But behind the curtain in the data center, data traffic speeds have been snowballing with no slowdown in sight.

From 2011 to 2016, global data center traffic will have nearly quadrupled to 6.6 zettabytes, according to research from Cisco. Mobile data, cloud computing and virtualization are changing the way data flows between machines. Ethernet, as always, evolves to provide the scaffolding and support: 10 gigabit Ethernet can be found in virtually any new blade server chassis sold by the Ciscos, Dells and H-P’s of the world.

Greener Ethernet by Broadcom

With all that appetite for speedy data, it would be easy to let Ethernet equipment consume enormous quantities of power. But unsustainable power consumption can’t go unchecked, which is where Broadcom comes in with its lineup of Energy Efficient Ethernet products. The first Energy Efficient Ethernet standard was codified in late 2010 and continues to be a factor in each subsequent generation.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are saved each year by putting high speed data links into a sleep mode during low traffic times, according to Nick Ilyadis, chief technical officer of the Infrastructure & Networking Group at Broadcom.

“It used to be that those channels were always active even when data packets weren’t being sent,” he said. “But that’s not necessary anymore. Our switches, controllers and PHYs can power up and down almost instantly based on traffic.”

Broadcom continues to innovate in this area through its work with the IEEE as well as several industry groups researching new ways to tackle the problem, including the Green Grid and Climate Savers Computing Initiative and GreenTouch.

Where Ethernet’s Going

Cut to the future. If you’re looking to build out a new data center in the next few years, you should fully expect vendors to sell 10 and 40 gigabit Ethernet: both have been ratified as specifications and are supported by Broadcom.

The need for speed doesn’t stop there. Broadcom is ready with products that will support 100 gigabit Ethernet. Last year, Broadcom launched a family of 100 Gbps PHY chips that enable analog signal access to the highest bandwidth local area network (LAN) pipelines imaginable. And, there’s no reason to doubt that 400 gigabit and even 1 terabit Ethernet could follow, as the IEEE has kicked off a study group in this area.

The most voracious data-using companies in Silicon Valley (think: Facebook, Google, Twitter) are making plans to build mega data centers that rival the size of small cities to support our cumulative social media habits. Undoubtedly, the Ethernet ecosystem will be among their most valued building blocks.

It’s easy to think of Ethernet as an enterprise-only solution relegated to infrastructure — but that’s hardly the case. The next place you might encounter Ethernet could be your car. 100 megabit Ethernet connectivity that carries both power and data will find its way into a variety of automotive systems, from digital audio to driver assistance and comfort controls. Broadcom works with a cross-industry group of partners through OPEN (One-Pair-Ether-Net), an organization that aims to promote Ethernet as the dominant in-car connectivity standard.

Car manufacturers can’t wait to start lining the inside of your car with twisted-pair Ethernet cables for several reasons: they’re cheaper, they’re lighter and they help create a seamless convergence of all the car’s disparate systems. And like all Ethernet technologies before it, it’s quickly being adopted and deployed now by automakers such as BMW and Hyundai.

“Ten years ago, Ethernet in cars would not have been on our radar,” Broadcom’s Ilyadis said. Perhaps the technology’s strongest trait, Ilyadis noted is that Ethernet is “adaptable,” not static. “It constantly evolves to meet market needs.”

Here’s to another 40 years.

RDJ chats with science fair finalists. Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Invision for Walt Disney Studios/AP Images.

The 12 finalists of Marvel’s Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair — all of them past participants in the Broadcom MASTERS® science fair competition – recently got some face time with the star behind the “Iron Man” mask.

The finalists looked “amazed” and “shocked” when Robert Downey Jr., the actor who plays billionaire inventor and all-around superhero Tony Stark in the wildly successful “Iron Man” franchise, appeared onstage with them during a special awards ceremony.

“I am very pleased to be introducing the future design team of the next Tony Stark Iron Man suit,” Downey said, according to a report in USA Today.

View more photos from the event on Facebook.

The finalists, whose nationally-recognized science projects include topics such as stem cells and gene mutations, are set to see their projects on display at the landmark  El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood this month.

Grand Prize winners received their awards in a special ceremony onstage, hosted by Asa Kalama, a Walt Disney Imagineer. Cassie Drury, an eighth-grade MASTERS finalist from Louisville, KY, was awarded one of the grand prizes for her project, “Exploring Cell Signaling in Wound Healing.”

The Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair is a nationwide science competition held in conjunction with the release of “Iron Man 3”, sponsored by Discovery Science Center, Broadcom Foundation and Marvel Studios.

Finalists on stage at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

Prior to their Hollywood adventures, the students took a tour of Broadcom’s headquarters in Orange County, where they met engineers and spent some hands-on time with the latest Broadcom-powered consumer tech gadgets. From there, they spent some time behind-the-scenes at Disney Studios, had a meeting with Disney Imagineers and took trips to Disneyland and the Discovery Science Center.

Related:

• “Iron Man 3” Contest Finalists Get Hands-On with the Technologies that Connect everything®
• STEM Scholars Share Science Projects at the White House, Broadcom MASTERS Represent
• Broadcom MASTERS Students Champion Science and Engineering in Sacramento
• STEM Students Meet With Lawmakers for National Engineers Week
• Rising Star Raymond Gilmartin Wins MASTERS® Top Prize

This year at Interop, top IT professionals, bloggers and industry analysts converged in Las Vegas to see the future of networking on display.

A look inside Broadcom’s Booth at Interop.

As for Broadcom, the company announced products that are driving the next wave of networking innovation: Enabling enterprise and SMB-level companies to adopt the cloud and deploy other advanced networking technologies and bringing the power of big data to every business, regardless of size.

Broadcom also released an advanced enterprise access point system-on-a-chip, (read: mega router for businesses) that supports super-fast and power efficient 802.11ac wireless networking, or 5G WiFi.

The new releases landed some press buzz, and many tech reporters zeroed-in on Broadcom’s commitment to power efficiency – a major concern for all players in the industry.

• Tech Zone 360: Broadcom Introduces Two New System-on-a-chip (SoC) Processors at Interop
• Enterprise Networking Planet: Broadcom Secures WiFi with New Silicon
• Converge Network Digest : Broadcom’s next gen 40nm PHYs Promise 40% Power Savings

This year’s Interop was billed as the “coming out party” for Software Defined Networking (SDN), and Broadcom contributed to the conversation in a  panel discussion with Ram Velaga and a keynote with other execs from Microsoft and VMware. They each discussed the future of networking and how companies will adapt to an increasingly software-defined world.

• Light Reading: What Applications will want from SDN
• Enterprise Networking Planet: Interop Panel Tackles SDN
• Fierce Enterprise Communications: Networks must get ‘Faster and Flatter’ Judges Broadcom’s Ramaswami

Also attracting a lot of attention was the announcement by Facebook that Broadcom is one of the companies being invited to help develop the first open source switch. Our engineers will join peers from other companies to develop a standard for switches that will become part of the Open Compute Project.

• New York Times: Opening Up Networking’s Black Box
• Giga Om: Heck yeah! Facebook’s Open Compute Project is Making an Open Source Switch
• IT World: Facebook Shakes Up Switch  Market with New Open Compute Project

Finally, Broadcom technology got a vicarious nod when Arista Network’s 7500 E Series, powered by the Broadcom BCM88650 ASIC switch, was named the winner in the “Networking” category and won the Grand Prize for Best of Interop 2013. The judging committee is comprised of 16 IT editors and analysts who voted for the product with the most potential for advancing the technological boundaries of business networking.

• The Register: Arista Monster Switches Fluff Up Cloud with 1 million Virty Machines
• Network Computing: Best of Interop 2013 Winners Announced
• The Wall Street Journal: Arista Networks Named Grand Winner for Best of Interop 2013

In other awards news, Broadcom was named a winner in multiple categories in the annual Network Product Guide awards that were also announced this week.  Our products were recognized in the “Best IT Hardware,” “Infrastructure,” “Innovations in Mobile” and “Wireless and Mobile and Wireless Solutions categories.” A full list of the awards and winners can be found at Network Product Guide’s website.

Couldn’t make it to Vegas? Get all the highlights and headlines from Interop 2013 right here.

Related:

•  Keynote Recap: Exploring the Power and Potential of Next-Gen Networking at Interop
•  On Deck at Interop 2013: Simplifying With SDN
•  SDN: A Sea Change in the Data Center
•  Interop Preview: Network Infrastructure in the Spotlight

To get a sense of the excitement, anticipation and even — dare we say it, anxiety — around the fast-approaching Software Defined Networking trend, look no further than this week’s Interop conference in Las Vegas.

The SDN discussion is everywhere  — in the workshops, on the panels, at the show floor booths and, earlier today, the main keynote stage.

From left to right: Broadcom’s Rajiv Ramaswami, Microsoft’s Rajeev Nagar, VMware’s Martin Casado and moderator Eric Hanselman.

Rajiv Ramaswami, executive vice president and general manager of Infrastructure & Networking Group at Broadcom, was joined on Wednesday morning by executives from industry heavyweights VMWare and Microsoft to elevate the discussions – and address some concerns – about SDN. (See the keynote panelists’ bios here.)

Previously: On Deck at Interop 2013: Simplifying With SDN

Right out of the gate, the panelists tried to quash concerns that SDN’s arrival would be some sort of Armageddon that completely changes the role of the network. In fact, the panelists said, the coming of SDN is closely tied to a transition that’s already happening at enterprises across the world, with trends like network virtualization, cloud computing and BYOD already ushering in the next generation of networking.

As the technology and deployments evolve, companies are opening their doors (and their IT budgets) to unconventional network architectures that are increasingly automated and compatible with third-party applications. Overall, the network is still a small part of the larger data center budget. But if the network doesn’t work right, then a lot of time and money are being wasted. “You don’t want the network to get in the way,” Ramaswami told the audience of about 1,500 show attendees.

Learn More: SDN: A Sea Change in the Data Center.

The question of whether advancements in automation and virtualization eliminate the need for visibility into the physical network is one that companies – and their network administrators – are asking at Interop and beyond. Ramaswami says that there will always be some need for visibility into the physical network, such as when technicians have to troubleshoot problems with a virtualization overlay, for example. Networks, he said, can’t be built in a vacuum.

It’s still somewhat of a Wild West mentality around this next wave of networking – no one knows for sure what networking in the future will look like. It’s gotten more interesting, Ramaswami said, noting that innovation is happening at a breakneck pace, inviting new players to take advantage of opportunities and forcing legacy roles to be turned upside-down. That can be a scary prospect to IT professionals, who are charged with keeping the network safe and secure, but may also feel pressured to adopt technologies that promise to boost efficiency, meet new demands and stay within budget.

On the flip side, he notes, it’s also an exciting time. Given the number of networking products vendors (such as Broadcom) who are talking about Software Defined Networking at shows like Interop, it’s safe to say that the industry just might be ready for these types of change.

Interop continues through May 9 in Las Vegas.

Keep up to date on what’s going on the behind the scenes and across the network by following Broadcom’s coverage here. You can also follow us on Twitter at the show using the hashtag #Interop.

Related:

• Rajiv Ramaswami’s bio 
• On Deck at Interop 2013: Simplifying With SDN
• SDN: A Sea Change in the Data Center
• Interop 2013: Broadcom Helps Enterprises Embrace Advanced Networking

Industry Buzz:

• FierceEnterpriseCommunications: Networks Must Get ‘Faster and Flatter,’ Judges Broadcom’s Ramaswami 
• Enterprise Networking Planet: Interop Panel Tackles SDN 
• Enterprise Networking Planet: Interop 2013: SDN Gets Real

Is Software Defined Networking, or SDN, ready for prime-time? It’s a question that was posed to a panel of industry experts at the Interop conference in Las Vegas today – and one that’s not easily answered.

Broadcom’s Ram Velaga (center) sits on a panel about SDN at Interop 2013

But, Ram Velaga, Broadcom’s vice president and general manager of network switches in the Infrastructure & Networking Group and a panelist at today’s session, offered up a simple— and perhaps better—counterpoint to the complex question: Industry adoption of Software Defined Networking is a matter of “when,” not “if.”

“SDN is here to stay,” he said.The rise of Software Defined Networking is evident at the conference, which kicked off today, as crowds of network administrators and other IT professionals consider how, and to what degree, their organizations should invest in the promise of SDN: simplifying network management.

Read More: SDN: A Sea Change in the Data Center

But there are still challenges that remain with SDN, largely because companies are still learning about how to best deploy SDN and how it relates to other, existing technologies in the network, such as virtualization and application processing.

Velaga noted that most of the questions that customers have center around agility and performance at the application layers. Companies want to increase the utilization of all of their networking assets, not just the data center, he said. Velaga explained that SDN is just one piece of a larger evolution in the Enterprise toward app mobility and agility (see the BYOD trend), not just asset utilization.

The panel addressed a number of topics, including security concerns, firewalls, network appliances and quality of service. While the industry grapples with the many uncertainties around SDN, its many benefits can’t be ignored. It has certainly piqued the interest of network administrators who are paying attention and asking plenty of questions around topics such as dynamic performance and, more important, the bridge between SDN and legacy equipment.

The Interop conference continues through May 9 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

Keep up to date on what’s going on the behind the scenes and across the network by following Broadcom’s coverage here. You can also follow us on Twitter at the show using the hashtag #Interop.

Industry Buzz:

• Light Reading: What Applications Will Want From SDN

Short for Software Defined Networking, SDN has become the latest enterprise tech acronym to buzz around the data center — and rightfully so.

Information technology professionals are excited about the potential benefits of turning the complex task of provisioning, optimizing and monitoring network traffic over to software.

It’s one of the main themes of this year’s Interop trade show, which kicked off this week in Las Vegas and is set to feature workshops and panels that will ask crowds of network administrators and other IT professionals to consider how, and to what degree, their organizations should invest in this paradigm shift in networking design and deployment.

See News from Broadcom at Interop.

In a nutshell, SDN gives administrators a programmable and customizable interface for controlling and orchestrating the operation of a collection of devices at different levels of abstraction. SDN is all about performance, agility and effective asset utilization.

It’s a new and evolving concept, one that Broadcom is actively helping to standardize and exemplify. As such, Broadcom is participating in discussions with groups that have an interest in achieving smarter and more flexible networking through apps, whether atop software controllers or in switches for network automation or virtualization. Those groups include networking hardware makers, consortia and software projects, including the VXLAN and NVGRE specifications and Open Networking Foundation’s OpenFlow specification. The early Network Virtualization Overlays and first OpenFlow-enabled systems have been developed on Broadcom-based switches.

Just how will SDN reduce costs while also improving efficiency and productivity? Because SDN is still in its infancy, the full breadth of ways that SDN can benefit companies remains an open frontier.

Previously: Interop Preview: Network Infrastructure in the Spotlight

But, consider the amount of time and energy that goes into manual network management and configuration just to provision virtualization overlays or integrate with a service provider network. With a software layer, admins can configure the network virtualization, deploy services, balance loads to power down unneeded switches and add functionality faster and with fewer errors. SDN provides a network-wide software platform for deployment of tools and services at different levels of abstraction.

For the down-in-the-trenches network administrators, it’s all music to their ears.

Legacy vendors will be able to offer a variety of software features for their hardware switches, optimized specifically for private networks. Competing operating systems will become available to power the platforms behind the network and the apps. The OpenFlow protocol will be incorporated into some of these but there’s hope that, over time, the industry will settle on an interface standard to which all networking protocols can adhere, including distributed network.

For enterprises and vendors on the vanguard of the SDN sea change, Broadcom has a lot to offer. From Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch devices to full reference designs, Ethernet controllers to network optimized multi-core processors, Broadcom has the networking hardware and software APIs that will enable Software Defined Networking. Broadcom’s latest switches, like the Strata XGS Trident II 10/40Gbe series of switches, provide workload mobility and network virtualization with support of new protocols such as VXLAN and NVGRE.

Broadcom consistently delivers new silicon products — upping the bandwidth, adding advanced features for SDN, network virtualization and automation.

With millions of  high density 10GbE switch ports deployed and very extensive software development kits and application programming interfaces, the Broadcom switch-based platforms provide a broad and robust foundation for SDN deployments in data center and service provider network infrastructures. We’re looking forward to the conversations about these technologies and more at Interop.

Hope to see you there.

Keep up to date on what’s going on the behind the scenes and across the network by following Broadcom’s coverage here. You can also follow us on Twitter at the show using the hashtag #Interop.

The Interop show in Vegas is in full swing, and IT professionals of all stripes are seeing the latest in the networking equipment that keeps businesses running.

They are also looking to spend money: according to an Infonectics report, enterprises are expected to spend an average of $12.7 million on their network infrastructure this year, a 15 percent increase over last year.

Driving these trends is “Growth, growth, growth,” notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research:

“Growth is coming in all forms — in the amount of traffic traversing networks, in network capacity, ports, WAN bandwidth, and yes, even networking expenditures … lowering the cost of networking is top of mind for network managers,” Machowinski said.

Many businesses would like the ability to upgrade over time, instead of making one massive investment that may become obsolete faster than they would like.

Broadcom’s network infrastructure technologies aim to get at the heart of the issue, according to Ed Redmond, vice president and general manager, compute and connectivity, in the Infrastructure and Networking Group at Broadcom. With the latest Broadcom products, “customers can deliver higher performance, lower power solutions while leveraging existing investments.”

To address the growing market of enterprise networking upgraders, Broadcom introduced a slate of new products at Interop this week.  The first, the BCM54920 physical layer transceivers, can deliver gigabit speeds while lowering power consumption 40 percent compared to previous generations, thanks to integrated AutoGrEEEn® plus technology.

Read the full BCM54920 press release here.

To better compete in today’s fast moving economy, enterprises must be sure their network performance is in tip-top shape, so Broadcom has a new ARM-based low power system on a chip (SoC) that enhances performance and security for small-, medium- and enterprise-sized networks.

Read the full BCM58525 press release here.

Broadcom’s Interop offerings aren’t targeted solely to the data center, but also address how individual employees connect to the network, because what is the point of faster infrastructure if your employees are still bogged down by aging devices? Broadcom developed a 5GWiFi compatible SoC For Enterprise Access Point as part of our top of the line StrataGX™ Series. The SoC is designed to play to the numerous advantages of 5G WiFi, including more processing power, faster throughput and 80 percent lower power consumption.

Read the full BCM58522 press release here.

“Our latest StrataGX Series continues the rapid expansion of the StrataGX portfolio with sophisticated new security features to protect from malware and other threats that continue to challenge the enterprise,” Redmond said. “Broadcom is delivering a highly integrated, power-efficient processor to enable the rapid adoption of BYOD and demand for 5G WiFi in the enterprise.”

To see what else is happening at Interop, visit our show page, follow us on Twitter, or use the show hashtag #Interop.

Related: 

• Interop Preview: Network Infrastructure in the Spotlight

Industry Buzz:

• Enterprise Networking Planet: Broadcom secures WiFi with new Silicon
• Tech Zone 360: Broadcom introduces two new System-on-a-chip (SoC) processors at Interop
• EE Times Asia: Multi-port Gigabit PHYs boasts power saving AutoGrEEEn tech
• Light Reading: Virtualization takes the stage at Interop
• Telecom Paper: Broadcom unveils SoC for 5G Wi-Fi enterprise access points

The 2013 Fortune 500 list of U.S. companies was released this week, with Broadcom moving up 17 notches on the list to No. 327, up from No. 344 in 2012. It’s the fifth year that Broadcom has been on the list, steadily growing in ranking and revenue since its initial listing at No. 495 in 2009.

The list, which has been published since 1955, ranks U.S. companies by fiscal year revenue, but also looks at profits, headcount and other factors. As such, it is considered by some to be a bellwether of business and industry.

Broadcom earned its spot with reported annual revenue of $8.01 billion, up 8.4 percent from the previous year. Collectively, the Fortune 500′s biggest comeback sector was financial services. Highlights from the technology sector included Apple’s entry into the Top 10, at No. 6 and the debut of Facebook — including the list’s youngest CEO, 28-year-old Mark Zuckerberg — at No. 482.

Separately, Barron’s has released its own list of U.S. and Canadian companies through a survey that issues “grades” to companies based on sales growth, cash returns. Broadcom jumped to No. 18, up from No. 270 a year earlier.

Related:

• Carbon Report: Broadcom’s Disclosure Score on the Rise
• Broadcom’s Eben Upton Named Among MIT’s “35 Innovators Under 35″

As you’re reading this blog post, a myriad networking processes are happening quietly in the background: data in the form of bits and bytes appears on your screen, parsed and sorted on command by switches, likely sourced and stored in massive data centers where servers comprise this nebulous thing we call “the cloud.”

Considering that all of this occurs at blink-and-you-miss-it speeds and goes virtually unnoticed by the user, the technology is pretty impressive.

At Broadcom, we live and breathe this stuff — the intricate data dance that’s wrapped up in the backend network infrastructure enables all your Internet-connected devices to do what they do. The tech spotlight will be shining on the behind-the-scenes world of networking and infrastructure at the annual Interop conference, which opens this week in Las Vegas. 

Data center networking — sometimes called “big data” — has been becoming more visible lately in the news with headlines about Facebook’s $1.5 billion mega data center in Iowa and Google pledging $2 billion to improve its data centers around the world this year.

With that much investment on the table, network managers and IT experts converging at Interop will certainly be pulling out all the stops to up their network infrastructure game.

In addition to showing off their latest product advancements, Interop exhibitors will be sending execs to speaker sessions and workshops, all centered on a group of topics: Big Data, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Cloud platforms, security and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

Make no mistake; the future of these trends will determine how every business on the planet operates in the coming years. Big Data is set to create smarter cities through optimized power grids, SDN is expected to  make huge efficiency strides in power-hungry data centers, the cloud can enable local businesses to have global reach and network security is slated to keep all of that data — estimated over the next eight years to grow to some 5,200 GB of data for every man, woman and child on Earth — out of harm’s way. 

Now at Interop, we are charging into the future by addressing software defined networking. SDN, while relatively new, has the potential to be a market disruptor within the networking marketplace. Tomorrow, Broadcom’s Ram Velaga, vice president and general manager, network switches, Infrastructure and Networking Group will be participating in a speaking session titled “SDN: A Vendor’s Perspective,” 1:55 p.m. May 7.

On May 8, Broadcom’s Rajiv Ramaswami will join other top executives as part of the morning keynote series, on the “Deep Network Impact” of SDN. In the talk, Rajiv will be addressing how companies will need to respond the massive changes brought on by virtualization and SDN — how to make sure they are ready to capitalize on the positive while avoiding any potential negatives.

Keep up to date on what’s going on the behind the scenes and across the network by following Broadcom’s coverage here. You can also follow us on Twitter at the show using the hashtag #Interop.

Related:

• The Road Less Traveled: Server Virtualization and the Data Center
• Demystifying the Data Center, Part 1: Power Consumption Matters
• Broadcom at Interop: Energy Efficient Ethernet is Good for the Planet
• Broadcom at Interop: Power Consumption Technology Plays Important Role
• Broadcom’s Energy-Efficient Networking Products

Industry Buzz:

• Converge Network Digest: Broadcom’s next-gen 40nm PHYs promise 40% power savings
• Enterprise Networking Planet: Interop 2013: SDN gets real

Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair finalists visit Broadcom’s Irvine, Calif., headquarters get hands-on with smartphones.

The dozen or so middle school students who spent a morning in the Demo Center at Broadcom’s headquarters this week were like kids in a high-tech candy store. The students, nominees of the Broadcom MASTERS®  science fair competition and finalists of Marvel’s Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair, spent the day exploring some of the most coveted tech gadgets that contain Broadcom chips, such as the Nintendo Wii U, the Raspberry Pi and much more.

Read more about the Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair.

But they also spent some time chatting with Jacob Rael, director of wireless radio frequency engineering in the Mobile & Wireless Group at Broadcom who shared stories of how we taught himself to code, how he’d scheme to get access to a computer as a kid and how he cultivated his love of engineering with science fair projects – just like the MASTERS participants. Sticking with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), he said, would help them develop a uniqueness that will stand out later, when the college years roll around.

“Of course you have to get good grades and good letters of recommendation, but you also need a distinguishing factor, something a little different,” he said. “Give yourself a chance to develop a little different tilt so you can get into that top school.”

View more photos from the event on Facebook.

The students peppered Rael with all sorts of questions. They wanted to know everything – how fractal shapes can improve capacitors within chips, how prototypes get made at Broadcom, all about wireless standards for network interoperability and the immense internal drive and grit that it takes to be a successful engineer.

“Engineers are extremely competitive people,” Rael, a 13-year Broadcom veteran and expert in Bluetooth, Wireless Local Area Network and cellular radios, told them. “We hate to lose.”

The students were particularly intrigued by the development of smartphones on display, such as the new HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus. Asked what they find to be most impressive about today’s smartphones, the students rattled off their answers.

“Touch screen!” yelled one student.

“Web surfing!” said another.

“That they confuse my mom,” cracked another.

The trek through Broadcom was only the beginning for these students. Their day of a science-filled whirlwind tour was still to include a behind-the-scenes visit to Disney Studios, a meeting with Disney Imagineers, a trip to Disneyland and a visit to Discovery Science Center.

The Broadcom MASTERS, a program of Society for Science & the Public (SSP), is an international science fair competition sponsored by Broadcom Foundation to inspire 6th, 7th and 8th graders to stay with Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering as Rising Stars in these STEM fields.

The finalists, whose nationally-recognized science projects include topics such as stem cells and gene mutations, are set to see their projects on display at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood this month. They’ll compete for four grand prizes, set to be awarded tonight.

Related:

• STEM Scholars Share Science Projects at the White House, Broadcom MASTERS Represent
• Broadcom MASTERS Students Champion Science and Engineering in Sacramento
• STEM Students Meet With Lawmakers for National Engineers Week
• Broadcom MASTERS Finalists Get a Taste of Raspberry Pi
• Rising Star Raymond Gilmartin Wins MASTERS® Top Prize