Fujitsu has kicked off a major effort to see its 10Gbps networking gear make its way into blade servers from the likes of HP, IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems. More broadly, Fujitsu expects increased standardization in the blade market in the near future.

In August, Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA) rolled out a 20-port 10Gbps Ethernet switch IC dubbed the MB8AA3020. The product is aimed at ATCA and micro TCA blade servers. Fujitsu hopes the major server vendors will adopt the product at a quick clip, as they embrace 10Gbps gear.

"We will work with partners to sell this product as part of a total solution for companies such as Dell, HP and IBM," said Keith Horn (pictured), FMA's COO, during a meeting this week in Santa Clara. "If you're an IBM or an HP, you don't want to do this in house."

So far, blade server vendors have rejected most of the nudges toward standardization. Each vendor - be it Sun, IBM, HP or even an Egenera - has come up with its own chassis, processor and networking options. IBM has been the lone major vendor to make any real call for blade standards, but it wants everyone to build around its BladeCenter line – not the most attractive proposition for rivals.

Horn expects the blade server market to start converging and hopes to work with a variety of partners to craft a common switch blade that will be broadly adopted.

"There is certainly more of a drive underway toward standardization," he said.

Away from the switching action, FMA announced this week that it's now accepting ASIC designs for customers hoping to tap its 65-nanometer CMOS manufacturing process. Parent Fujitsu has a new $1bn fab coming online in April of 2007 to produce 90nm and 65nm integrated circuits with 300mm wafers. ®

Related stories

• Fujitsu-Siemens punts small biz storage blade (29 September 2008)
• Charmed by own tune, Egenera sells PAN to rivals (29 October 2007)
• Fujitsu sharpens blade server (27 June 2007)
• Fujitsu workers vote on strike (7 November 2006)
• Exclusive Dell steals HP's blade boy Becker (25 October 2006)
• Alcatel pushes 10Gig aggregation (6 October 2006)
• Return to 2000 Sun's server sales soar, while Dell bores in Q2 (23 August 2006)
• Intel hopes users see more than double with Montecito (18 July 2006)
• Dell stuns India with increased R&D spend (6 May 2006)
• Fujitsu Siemens CTO: There's more to life than virtualisation (3 April 2006)
• Fujitsu and Tyan flex their Opteron eight-packs (14 March 2006)
• Fujitsu breaks from Intel-only camp, embraces Opteron (18 October 2005)
• SuperComm IBM and Sun dangle their blades at telcos (7 June 2005)