P1400GD Broadcom 400 GBPS QSFP DD Single Port PCIE Ethernet Network Interface Card

Broadcom 400GBPS QSFP-DD PCIe Interface Card

General Information

• Manufacturer: Broadcom
• Part Number: P1400GD
• Device Type: Ethernet Interface Card

Network Interface Features

• 8 SerDes supporting 100/50G PAM4 and 25G NRZ
• QSFP-DD 112 compatibility
• Single-port speeds: 400/200/100/50/25G
• 400Gb/s aggregate throughput
• Auto-negotiation with auto-detect functionality
• IEEE-1588v2 precision timing

Host Interface Specifications

• 16 lanes of PCI Express 5.0
• Supported link rates: 32, 16, 8, 5, 2.5 GT/s
• Lane configurations: x16, x8, x4, x2, x1
• MSI-X interrupt support

Platform Security Capabilities

• Hardware secure boot (RoT)
• SPDM attestation
• OCP secure recovery
• Secure wipe and restore
• OCP Silver Security Badge (certification pending)

RoCEv2 Enhancements

• Standards-based implementation
• DCQCN congestion control
• Peer memory direct access
• Smart congestion management: DCN and SARA
• Automated configuration

Networking, Virtualization & Acceleration

Virtualization Support

• Multi-queue, NetQueue, VMQ
• Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
• VF isolation and protection

Tunneling Protocols

• VXLAN, GRE, NVGRE, Geneve, IP-in-IP
• Tunnel-aware stateless offloads
• Edge Virtual Bridging (EVB)

TCP/IP Offloads

• Checksum offload (IP/TCP/UDP)
• LSO, LRO, GRO, TSS, RSS, ARFS
• Interrupt coalescing

Encryption Offloads

• KTLS hardware encryption/decryption
• QUIC hardware encryption/decryption

TrueFlow Flow Processing

• Flexible matching key
• NAT and NAPT support
• Tunnel encapsulation/decapsulation
• Custom tunnel processing
• Connection tracking
• Flow aging
• Sampling and mirroring
• Rate-limiting and metering
• Flow-based statistics
• Network traffic hairpin

Manageability Options

• NC-SI (Network Controller Sideband Interface)
• MCTP (Management Component Transport Protocol)
• MCTP over SMBus/I2C
• MCTP over PCIe VDM
• NC-SI over MCTP
• PLDM (Platform Level Data Model): base, monitoring/control & firmware update
• PLDM over MCTP
• I2C support for device control and configuration

Network Boot Capabilities

• UEFI PXE boot
• UEFI L2 iSCSI boot
• UEFI support for x86 systems

Design Specification

• Compliant with PCI-SIG CEM standards

P1400GD 400GBPS QSFP-DD PCIe Interface Card Overview

The Broadcom P1400GD 400 GBPS QSFP-DD Single Port PCI Express 5.0 x16 Ethernet Network Interface Card represents a specialized category of ultra-high-speed network interface solutions designed for next-generation data centers, hyperscale cloud environments, high-performance computing clusters, and advanced enterprise networking infrastructures. This category focuses on maximizing throughput, minimizing latency, and enabling seamless integration with modern server architectures that demand extreme bandwidth and reliability. The P1400GD class of adapters embodies the convergence of advanced silicon engineering, cutting-edge PCI Express standards, and high-density optical and copper connectivity.

Within this category, emphasis is placed on supporting large-scale east-west traffic patterns, massive data ingestion, and real-time workload responsiveness. Network interface cards like the Broadcom P1400GD are engineered to handle workloads driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, distributed storage systems, and high-frequency transactional platforms. The defining characteristic of this category is its ability to deliver deterministic performance at scale, even under sustained heavy network utilization.

400 Gigabit Ethernet Architecture and QSFP-DD Integration

The 400 Gigabit Ethernet capability is central to this category, enabling unprecedented data transfer rates over a single network port. The QSFP-DD form factor provides the physical foundation for this performance level, allowing double-density electrical contacts compared to earlier QSFP generations. This enables higher lane counts and improved signal integrity while maintaining backward compatibility with existing QSFP-based infrastructure through appropriate adapters and breakouts.

Category solutions built around QSFP-DD ports are designed to accommodate a wide range of transceivers and direct-attach cables, supporting both short-reach and long-reach connectivity scenarios. This flexibility is essential for modern data centers that must support diverse topologies, including spine-leaf architectures, disaggregated storage fabrics, and high-bandwidth compute interconnects. The Broadcom P1400GD category emphasizes seamless interoperability across optical modules, ensuring consistent performance across multimode, single-mode, and copper-based deployments.

Lane Distribution and Signal Integrity Considerations

At the electrical level, this category leverages multiple high-speed lanes aggregated to achieve the 400 Gbps data rate. Careful lane distribution, advanced equalization techniques, and signal conditioning are essential components of the design philosophy. The P1400GD category focuses on maintaining low bit error rates even at extreme speeds, ensuring reliable data transmission in electrically noisy server environments.

Signal integrity enhancements within this category often include advanced PCB layouts, high-quality connectors, and firmware-level tuning to adapt to varying cable lengths and transceiver characteristics. These considerations are critical for maintaining consistent throughput and reducing retransmissions, which directly impact application performance and overall network efficiency.

PCI Express 5.0 x16 Interface and Host Integration

A defining element of this category is the use of the PCI Express 5.0 x16 host interface. PCIe 5.0 doubles the per-lane bandwidth compared to PCIe 4.0, making it a natural match for 400 Gbps networking. This interface ensures that the network adapter is not constrained by host-side bandwidth limitations, allowing full utilization of the Ethernet link without bottlenecks.

Category-level designs emphasize tight integration with modern server platforms based on the latest CPU architectures. The Broadcom P1400GD class is optimized for multi-socket servers, NUMA-aware configurations, and high-core-count processors. This ensures efficient data movement between the network interface and system memory, reducing latency and CPU overhead.

Direct Memory Access and Data Path Optimization

High-speed DMA engines are a cornerstone of this category, enabling direct data transfers between the network and system memory without excessive CPU intervention. This approach significantly reduces processing overhead and allows applications to scale more effectively as network speeds increase. The P1400GD category focuses on optimizing data paths to support zero-copy networking and kernel bypass techniques where applicable.

Advanced queue management and interrupt moderation strategies are also integral to this category. These features allow the network interface card to handle millions of packets per second while maintaining predictable latency characteristics. Such capabilities are essential for latency-sensitive workloads, including real-time analytics, financial trading platforms, and distributed databases.

Offload Capabilities and Intelligent Networking Features

The Broadcom P1400GD category places strong emphasis on intelligent offload capabilities that shift processing tasks from the host CPU to the network adapter. These offloads can include checksum computation, segmentation and reassembly, encryption and decryption, and protocol handling. By offloading these tasks, the NIC frees up CPU resources for application-level processing, improving overall system efficiency.

This category is particularly well-suited for environments that rely heavily on virtualization and containerization. Offloads tailored for overlay networks, such as VXLAN and NVGRE, enable efficient handling of encapsulated traffic without imposing additional CPU overhead. This makes the P1400GD class a strong fit for cloud-native architectures and software-defined networking deployments.

Scalability for Hyperscale and Cloud Environments

Scalability is a defining attribute of the Broadcom P1400GD category. Designed for hyperscale deployments, these network interface cards support massive horizontal scaling across thousands of servers. Consistent performance characteristics and predictable behavior under load make them ideal for large-scale cloud platforms where uniformity and reliability are paramount.

The category supports advanced telemetry and monitoring capabilities, enabling operators to gain deep visibility into network performance metrics. This data can be integrated with orchestration and management platforms to support automated scaling, fault detection, and performance optimization across the entire infrastructure.

Multi-Tenant and Virtualized Workload Support

In multi-tenant environments, isolation and fairness are critical. The P1400GD category supports features such as multiple transmit and receive queues, traffic shaping, and quality of service enforcement. These capabilities ensure that individual workloads receive predictable network performance, even when sharing physical resources with other tenants.

Hardware-assisted virtualization features further enhance this category’s suitability for cloud environments. Support for technologies such as SR-IOV allows virtual machines and containers to access network resources with minimal overhead while maintaining strong isolation boundaries.

Synchronization and Time-Sensitive Networking

Precise time synchronization is increasingly important in advanced computing environments. The P1400GD category often includes support for hardware timestamping and precision time protocols, enabling accurate coordination across distributed systems. This is particularly valuable for scientific research, financial applications, and real-time data processing pipelines.

Time-sensitive networking capabilities also enhance determinism, ensuring that latency-sensitive traffic is delivered within strict timing constraints. These features expand the applicability of this category beyond traditional data center workloads into specialized real-time environments.

Thermal Design and Power Efficiency

Operating at 400 Gbps presents significant thermal and power challenges. The P1400GD category incorporates advanced thermal management strategies, including efficient heat sinks, optimized airflow designs, and dynamic power management. These measures ensure stable operation under sustained high loads while maintaining acceptable power consumption levels.

Power efficiency is a critical factor in large-scale deployments, where incremental improvements can translate into substantial cost savings. By optimizing silicon design and leveraging PCIe 5.0 efficiencies, this category delivers high performance per watt, aligning with modern sustainability goals.

Compatibility with Storage and Disaggregated Architectures

As data centers increasingly adopt disaggregated architectures, networking plays a central role in connecting compute, storage, and accelerator resources. The P1400GD category supports high-throughput, low-latency connectivity required for network-attached storage solutions and composable infrastructure models.

Support for protocols optimized for storage traffic ensures that high-speed Ethernet can serve as a viable alternative to traditional storage interconnects. This flexibility allows organizations to simplify their infrastructure while maintaining high performance.