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NHI350AM2 Product Overview
The Intel Ethernet Controller NHI350AM2 is a high-performance, low-power dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controller from Intel, part of the I350-AM2 series. Housed in a 256-pin PBGA (17×17mm) package, the NHI350AM2 is the dual-port configuration of the I350-AM2 series. As the halogen-free variant of the I350-AM2, the NHI350AM2 offers identical functionality to the standard I350-AM2 but with packaging materials that meet stricter environmental standards. The NHI350AM2 integrates two fully independent Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PHY ports, along with SGMII/SerDes interfaces for connecting external PHYs to support both copper and fiber applications. The NHI350AM2 connects to the host system via a PCI Express v2.1 x4 (5 GT/s) interface, supporting 10/100/1000Mbps auto-negotiation with a single-port power consumption of just 1.0W (typical dual-port mode power consumption of approximately 2.8W). As a key member of Intel's I350 series Ethernet controller family, the NHI350AM2 is specifically designed to meet the high-density, high-reliability Gigabit networking demands of enterprise servers, data centers, and network infrastructure.
NHI350AM2 Key Features
The NHI350AM2 embodies Intel's deep expertise in high-performance networking through its robust hardware architecture and feature set. It features a PCI Express v2.1 (PCIe 2.1) x4/x2/x1 host interface supporting both 2.5 GT/s and 5 GT/s transfer rates. The NHI350AM2 offers two fully integrated Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PHY ports, supporting dual-port 1000BASE-T copper or via SGMII/SerDes interfaces for fiber (1000BASE-SX/LX) and backplane (1000BASE-KX/BX) applications. The NHI350AM2 supports PCI-SIG SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization) for significant CPU overhead reduction. It also supports VMDq (Virtual Machine Device Queues) with up to 8 VM queues per port. The NHI350AM2 supports UDP, TCP, and IP checksum offload, UDP and TCP Transmit Segmentation Offload (TSO) , and other performance enhancements. The NHI350AM2 supports IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) for reduced power consumption during low link utilization. Operating from 3.0V to 3.6V (3.3V typical) , the NHI350AM2 supports an ambient temperature range of 0℃ to 55℃ (with -10℃ to 85℃ specifications also available). The NHI350AM2 supports NC-SI or SMBus manageability connections, IEEE 1149.6 JTAG, as well as programmable LED indicators, VLAN filtering, IEEE 1588 precision time synchronization, fiber support, and wake-on-LAN functions. The NHI350AM2 supports 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T physical network standards with full/half duplex communication modes, compliant with IEEE 802.3 standards.
NHI350AM2 Applications
With its exceptional dual-port density, flexible interface configuration, and powerful virtualization features, the NHI350AM2 is widely deployed in demanding networking environments. As a core controller, the NHI350AM2 is an ideal component for dual-port Gigabit Ethernet server adapters, providing high-density Gigabit connectivity for rack servers, pedestal servers, and blade servers. The NHI350AM2 is also suitable for LAN on Motherboard (LOM) or mezzanine card designs. With its robust SR-IOV and VMDq support, the NHI350AM2 is particularly well-suited for virtualized data centers and cloud computing environments. Additionally, the NHI350AM2 excels in embedded applications such as switch add-on cards and network appliances. The NHI350AM2 is especially suitable for network equipment designs targeting the EU market due to its halogen-free environmental compliance.
NHI350AM2 Key Advantages
The NHI350AM2 stands out as a mature, commercially available dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controller that strikes an excellent balance between high performance, high integration, and environmental compliance. Housed in a 256-pin PBGA (17×17mm) package and integrating two complete Gigabit MAC and PHY ports on a single chip, the NHI350AM2 delivers high-density networking while maintaining ultra-low power consumption (typical dual-port mode power consumption of approximately 2.8W, 1.0W per port) . The NHI350AM2 is the halogen-free variant of the I350-AM2, compliant with international environmental standards. The NHI350AM2 is available in both Tray (spec code SLJ3S) and Tape & Reel (spec code SLJ3R) packaging. Intel provides comprehensive driver support for the NHI350AM2 across mainstream operating systems including Windows Server, Linux, FreeBSD, and VMware ESXi. The NHI350AM2 offers system integrators and OEMs a highly competitive dual-port Gigabit Ethernet connectivity solution.
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FAQs:
1 What is the NHi350AM2 chip
It is an Intel E810 series high speed Ethernet network controller chip designed to provide high bandwidth and low latency data transmission for data center servers and enterprise networks.
2 What is NHI350AM2 main network interface speed
It supports flexible high speed Ethernet rate configurations typically supporting 10Gbps 25Gbps or higher speeds to meet the bandwidth demands of modern data centers and HPC clusters.
3 What package and host interface does NHI350AM2 use
It adopts a high density BGA ball grid array package. The host interface utilizes the PCI Express 4.0 high speed bus supporting high lane count configurations for extremely high data throughput.
4 What are the operating voltage and temperature ranges
It uses a multi voltage domain independent power design including core power and IO interface power. The industrial grade temperature range is typically from minus 40 degrees Celsius to plus 85 degrees Celsius.
5 What application scenarios is it suitable for
It is widely used in data center server network interface cards high speed network switches distributed storage nodes and industrial computing devices requiring strict bandwidth and latency performance.
6 What built in hardware acceleration features does it have
It integrates powerful packet processing engines that support RSS Receive Side Scaling VMDq Virtual Machine Device Queues packet classification and filtering network tunneling offload and checksum offloading to effectively offload the host CPU workload.
7 Does it support Remote Direct Memory Access
Yes it supports RDMA technology compatible with RoCEv2 and iWARP protocols enabling zero copy data transfers with high throughput and low latency for efficient cluster computing.
8 What are the power consumption and cooling requirements
Power consumption is significant during full speed high load operation. A large thermal heatsink must be applied to the chip surface and active forced air cooling through the chassis airflow channels is required to ensure long term stable operation.
9 What are the PCB design requirements for the BGA package
Due to the high integration and numerous high speed signals high layer count PCBs are required. Strict impedance matching and length control for PCIe 4.0 and Ethernet differential traces must be maintained and sufficient low ESR decoupling capacitors must be placed near the power supply pins.
10 What external components are needed to use NHI350AM2 chip
It typically requires external high speed Ethernet PHY transceiver chips QSFP or SFP+ optical module interfaces a high precision clock generator and high current power management circuitry to build a complete network physical port.