On March 22, 2016 Broadcom announced a new set of 8-channel 28Gbps repeater IC devices, the BCM82109 and BCM82181, designed for network backplane and front panel applications. The BCM82109 is an 8-channel unidirectional repeater device footprint-compatible to the Broadcom BCM82209 unidirectional retimer device. The BCM82181 is an 8-channel bidirectional repeater device footprint-compatible to the Broadcom BCM82381 bidirectional retimer device. The new devices are designed to address low power requirements while providing sufficient link performance to meet the IEEE 802.3 25/100GbE and 32GFC requirements for backplane, front panel and active copper applications.
