Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) today announced its continued commitment to lead the adoption of the U.3 (SFF-TA-1001) flexible, cost-effective reference design platform. Broadcom, along with industry-leading server, system and drive providers, completed a successful inaugural U.3 Plugfest last week. The event took place at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory, an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry.

“Broadcom continues to lead the ecosystem’s adoption and validation testing of emerging U.3 technologies, with its close alignment to industry-leading system OEMs and drive vendors,” said Jas Tremblay, vice president and general manager, Data Center Solutions Group, Broadcom. “Broadcom’s market-leading portfolio of NVMe/SAS/SATA Tri-Mode SerDes MegaRAID® and HBA controllers are critical components to the enablement of in-depth testing across the U.3-ready ecosystem. This first U.3 Plugfest proves that the U.3 ecosystem is strong and ready for primetime.”

The U.3 standard defines a common bay type and connector for SAS, SATA, and NVMe devices. The creation of the U.3 standard gives unprecedented flexibility to system OEMs and data centers that want to support the latest storage technologies at the lowest cost and system complexity. The availability of this comprehensive server reference platform will enable server and storage OEMs, drive manufacturers, and cable and connector suppliers to quickly design and deploy systems based on the U.3 ecosystem. 

Broadcom’s commitment to propel U.3 into the mainstream is supported by the industry’s leading system and drive providers, as well as backplane and chassis manufacturers and test equipment providers.

“Toshiba Memory was the first vendor to publicly demonstrate an SSD on a SFF-TA-1001, also known as U.3, reference platformⁱ. We are planning to deliver U.3-enabled SSDs to our OEM and data center customers, requiring simple and flexible storage solutions,” said Alvaro Toledo, vice president of SSD Marketing and Product Planning, Toshiba Memory. “U.3 enables customers to choose the right Toshiba Memory SSD for their application, whether it is SATA, value SAS, enterprise SAS or NVMe—without adding system complexity, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing SFF-8639/ U.2 sockets.”

"Given this was the industry’s first U.3 Plugfest, we were particularly eager to participate in driving the validation of U.3 technology testing across the ecosystem,” said Andy Norrie, operations director at Quarch. “Standardized testing efforts like these will help advance the deployment and development of U.3-based infrastructure industry-wide, so we’re pleased to be so closely involved.” 

Broadcom is the trusted market leader in storage connectivity and continues to innovate and invest in the industry’s broadest products portfolio including PCIe and NVMe Switches, SAS/SATA Controllers and Expanders, HBAs, RAID Adapters, Fibre Channel, HDD SoCs and PreAmps and SSD SoCs. With a 25-year history delivering high-quality silicon, advanced firmware, innovative board design, and extensive HDD/ SSD validation processes, Broadcom is the leading supplier of choice for server and external storage OEMs, system builders and hyperscale customers.