Ethernet switches and switch silicon

Broadcom supplies the vast majority of merchant switch silicon for AI fabrics and thin white-box margins deter new hardware entrants.

Data-centre Ethernet switching ASICs and merchant-silicon switches for AI scale-out. Growing adoption as open alternative to InfiniBand reduces vendor lock-in. Broadcom Tomahawk/Tofino holds ~70%+ switch silicon share; white-box assembly margins remain thin.

What the evidence shows

Marvell holds close to 13% market share as second-largest switch silicon supplier.

UALink alternative to Nvidia's NVLink is months away from shipping silicon.

theregister.com

RESCORED JUL 2026oligopolyscaling

Who controls it

Arista NetworksCiscoMarvell

$18B market · 20245.1% CAGRsource

Where it sits in the stack

Takes in: Switch ASIC die, optics, system chassis, management processors

Sends on: Open-standards AI cluster fabric with ECMP/RDMA support

depends onWafer fabrication - foundries and IDMs Optical transceivers and pluggable modules Network interface cards, SmartNICs, and DPUs Standard high-speed NICs (100G to 800G)SmartNICs and DPUs Co-packaged optics (CPO) and optical engines Active electrical cables (AEC), active optical cables (AOC), and direct attach cables (DAC)

feeds intoAI server OEMs ODM and white-box AI server manufacturers System integrators for AI infrastructure Substation automation, protection and control systems Cooling and thermal management

Related nodes

Scale-up fabric (intra-cluster GPU-to-GPU interconnect)InfiniBand switches and routers Optical transceivers and pluggable modules Optical components — lasers and EMLs Photonic integrated circuits (PICs)DSPs, retimers, and gearbox chips

Full scorecard, owner shares, supply edges and the full tracked roster are in the desk letter.

GET THE BRIEFING