Broadcom NetXtreme-E RoCE RDMA host channel adapters
RDMA-over-Converged-Ethernet (RoCE) support for Broadcom's NetXtreme-E family of data-center Ethernet adapters, spanning 10/25/40/50/100/200 GbE today and extending to 400G parts announced in 2024 for AI and high-performance networking. It lets these NICs perform low-latency remote direct memory access alongside their normal Ethernet duties.
recommendation
It should stay because Broadcom is actively shipping and developing the hardware: the BCM57500 NetXtreme-E line covers current 10/25/40/50/100/200 GbE data-center NICs with RoCEv1/v2 support, and Broadcom announced new 400G RoCE NICs in May 2024 for AI fabrics. Broadcom engineers were still posting feature patches to linux-rdma in early 2026, and no other upstream driver covers this hardware family.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
Upstream Kconfig identifies this as Broadcom NetXtreme-E 10/25/40/50 gigabit RoCE HCA support (`CONFIG_INFINIBAND_BNXT_RE`).
- lore.kernel.org
linux-rdma saw bnxt_re feature work in March 2026 (`RDMA/bnxt_re: Support create_qp_umem() devop`), indicating active upstream maintenance rather than retirement.
- lore.kernel.org
linux-rdma also carried bnxt_re functionality work in March 2026 (`Support application specific CQs`), reinforcing current development activity.
- docs.broadcom.com
Broadcom's BCM57500 product brief documents current NetXtreme-E controllers with RoCEv1/v2 support across 200/100/50/40/25/10GbE, showing the hardware family remains a marketed data-center NIC line.
- investors.broadcom.com
Broadcom announced new 400G RoCE/RDMA Ethernet NICs in May 2024 for AI/data-center deployment, showing ongoing new-deployment relevance for Broadcom RoCE NICs.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
`drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re` is plainly a real driver directory (local shell read of Kconfig/main.c). Chipset family label comes from Kconfig; URL given from canonical kernel.org recall. Upstream activity was checked with `lore_activity` on `drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re/main.c`, which returned multiple 2026 linux-rdma patches touching bnxt_re, with Broadcom authors and reviewers; that strongly argues against deprecation/removal. `lore_file_timeline` on the directory path returned no matches, likely because it wants exact file paths rather than directories, so I did not treat that as negative evidence. Hardware availability/deployment evidence came from `web.search` and `web.open` on Broadcom product briefs and Broadcom's 2024 400G RoCE NIC announcement. Because Broadcom is still marketing NetXtreme-E/RoCE NICs and the driver is actively developed, the right recommendation is keep; there is no natural upstream replacement driver for the same hardware family.