Mellanox, which last time we looked was an Infiniband company, has just started peddling a dual-port single-chip so-called ConnectX EN 10 gigE adapter chip and NIC.

The widgetry requires no external memory or interface support, which is supposed to make it suitable for low-power blades and volume LAN on motherboard designs, a broader market strategy than Mellanox has had before.

Going public might have something to do with it. Gotta keep those numbers up.

In keeping with that thought, the new adapter is also supposed to be optimized for multi-core CPUs and virtualized server and storage data center infrastructure. Very coming thing.

The small-footprint, reduced-power, single-chip design is supposed to be ideal for volume applications.

Mellanox rates the bi-directional throughput at 17.6 Gb/s, with TCP/IP latencies of less than seven microseconds. Unidirectional traffic is line rate in either direction, it says.

It works with Windows, Linux, Xen and VMware and both Intel and AMD hardware virtualization, TCP/IP and iSCSI protocol stacks

Volume OEM pricing for the adapter with integrated XAUI< CX4, KX4 and XFO interfaces is $182; the NIC supporting dual CX4 cipper 10 gigE interfaces is $405; NICs with fiber SR and LR XFP module connectivity are also available, but Mellanox hasn't disclosed the price.

Meanwhile, Mellanox brags that it's shipped over two million Infiniband ports, a mix of 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps.