Broadcom Corp. said three cable modem termination system (CMTS) vendors have adopted its long-awaited DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS 2.0-based chipsets: ADC, Arris and Cisco Systems.

All three are planning to use the new chips in their next-gen CMTS gear, Broadcom said, noting that the new silicon will offer return path throughputs up to 40 Mbps, higher than DOCSIS 2.0's maximum specified line rate of 30 Mbps.

The greater line rates, Broadcom claimed, will enable cable operators to deliver more symmetrical broadband services, including virtual private networks, "full-featured" IP telephony, video conferencing and peer-to-peer networking.

Broadcom's new CMTS chipset is comprised of the BCM3214 QAMLink media access controller, BCM3140 QAMLink Dual A-TDMA/S-CDMA burst receiver and the BCM3040 QAMLink modulator. The chips also incorporate Broadcom's "Propane" packet-acceleration software.

To date, only CMTSs based on silicon from Imedia Semiconductor, a division of Terayon Communication Systems, have received DOCSIS 2.0 qualification from CableLabs.