It may be hard to believe, but we’re coming up on ten years with 10GbE as an adapter option for servers and workstations.

In  2003 the first 10GbE network adapters based on a new breed of chips hit the market—and by 2006, the list had eventually grown to include nearly twenty (AdvancedIO, Broadcom, Chelsio, Intel, Emulex, Endace, Mellanox, Myricom, Napatech, NetEffect, Neterion, NetXen, QLogic, ServerEngines, SMC, Solarflare, Teak Technologies, and Tehuti Networks).

Designing & building a 10GbE ASIC is not a cheap undertaking. Even on a shoestring budget, it could easily run $7-10M for that first working chip. Some of these companies never made it past that initial functional 10GbE controller chip. The above-combined efforts represent nearly one-quarter of a billion dollars to launch the 10GbE adapter market. To remain in this market long term… the full article is published over on HPCWire.