nerdexam
Cisco

500-601 · Question #9

Which option describes the ASICs that comprise the 2 RU spine chassis PID Cisco Nexus 9336PQ?

The correct answer is A. Three Broadcom and one Alpine. Option A is correct because the Cisco Nexus 9336PQ spine switch uses three Broadcom Trident2 ASICs for data-plane forwarding across its 36 x 40G ports, plus one Cisco Alpine ASIC that handles ACI policy enforcement and control-plane functions - a total of four ASICs in a 3+1…

ACI Fabric Components and Operation

Question

Which option describes the ASICs that comprise the 2 RU spine chassis PID Cisco Nexus 9336PQ?

Options

  • AThree Broadcom and one Alpine
  • Btwo Broadcom and two Alpine
  • Ctwo Broadcom and one Alpine
  • Done Broadcom and two Alpine

How the community answered

(37 responses)
  • A
    92% (34)
  • B
    5% (2)
  • D
    3% (1)

Explanation

Option A is correct because the Cisco Nexus 9336PQ spine switch uses three Broadcom Trident2 ASICs for data-plane forwarding across its 36 x 40G ports, plus one Cisco Alpine ASIC that handles ACI policy enforcement and control-plane functions - a total of four ASICs in a 3+1 arrangement.

Options B and D are wrong because they miscount the Broadcom ASICs (two instead of three), and option C is wrong because it also shows only two Broadcom ASICs; all three distractors either swap or reduce the Broadcom count while playing with the Alpine count.

Memory tip: The "36" in 9336PQ stands for 36 ports, which are split across 3 Broadcom forwarding ASICs (12 ports each) - the port count directly encodes the ASIC count. Add one Alpine for ACI policy = 3 + 1.

Topics

#Nexus 9336PQ#ASIC Architecture#Spine Hardware#Broadcom Alpine

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full 500-601 Practice