Merchant silicon
Merchant silicon refers to commercially available integrated circuits (ICs) or chips from third-party vendors, used in networking equipment to deliver cost-effective, scalable, and standards-based solutions.
Merchant silicon chips are off-the-shelf components designed for networking applications and widely adopted by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to build switches, routers, and other network devices. These chips offer flexibility, interoperability, and rapid innovation, as vendors can select from a range of performance and feature sets to match their needs.
Key benefits include lower development costs, faster time-to-market, and adherence to industry standards for seamless integration. Merchant silicon enables OEMs to leverage technological advancements and maintain competitiveness in enterprise, data center, and service provider markets.
Common use cases include Ethernet switches, data center fabrics, wireless access points, and carrier-grade routers, where scalability, interoperability, and cost-effectiveness are critical.