Nexus ASIC levels and its capabilities

[gavinhans]

What is ASIC? what are different ASIC levels for each nexus platform and its capabilities?

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Hi @gavinhans 

Your questions is very generic. Is same as asking what is a switch and what different type of switches exists and what are their capabilities.

First, what is an ASIC?

Generally speaking, on the motherboard of any modern switch there is one or more ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) to which all ports are connected to. This is basically a chip which is programmed for a specific use. On switches, the ASIC is programmed to switch/forward/tag/buffer/etc traffic in and out of ports.

What are different type of ASICs on Nexus switches? Well, there are so many Nexus families (Nexus 3000/3100/3200/3400, Nexus 3500, Nexus 5000/5500/6000, Nexus 7000/7700, Nexus 9200/9300/9500). Now for each of these families, there are different models, each with it's own ASIC. So it will be way to long of a list and time consuming to describe all ASICs + capabilities of all these switches.

I invite you to look at:

• https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/data-center-switches/index.html  for discovering the Nexus platform family which matches with your needs
• ciscolive presentations for the specific Nexus family you are interested. Search for Nexus XXXX hardware architecture and you will find all the hardware capabilities (ASIC, forwarding engine details, capabilities, features etc). For example, for nexus 9000: https://www.ciscolive.com/global/on-demand-library.html?search=Nexus%20Architecture&search.event=ciscoliveemea2020#/session/1564527375701001cNU6 

Stay safe,

Sergiu