Keep pulling the thread on Nick Kucereski.
Cisco initiated a strategic shift several years ago to develop a unified, in-house silicon product family to serve enterprise, service provider, and cloud applications.
Cisco's programmable silicon allows for in-field functionality changes after the hardware has been deployed.
Cisco's in-house silicon design enables the company to offer a full-stack solution, from silicon and optics to system hardware, network OS, and orchestration software.
Cisco's silicon programmability allows customers to upgrade the functionality of existing equipment, a concept the company calls "regreening."
For most of its 40-year history, Cisco built silicon primarily using ASICs developed with third-party companies for specific product lines.
The goals of Cisco's in-house silicon strategy were to control its own roadmap, control market timelines, and achieve high software reuse across different market segments.
Cisco has five in-house silicon product lines in production that span the enterprise, service provider, and cloud markets.
Cisco's silicon features an optimized packet buffer architecture and advanced load balancing capabilities specifically for AI workloads.
Cisco is seeing significant customer traction for its "regreening" concept, which enables customers to extend equipment lifespan and increase ROI.
Cisco's product roadmap for cloud and hyperscale is shaped by partnerships with end customers to understand their specific requirements.
Cisco has a broad product line for optics covering applications inside enterprises, inside data centers, and between data centers across wide area networks.
Cisco was one of the first system companies to transition from using ASICs to developing in-house silicon.