Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9348Y12C-SE1

1. Part Number Naming Breakdown

Model: N9K-C9348Y12C-SE1

N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-scale fixed data center switch product family
C9348Y: 48 × SFP28 multi-rate optical downlink ports for server/GPU/storage access
12C: 12 × QSFP28 multi-rate 40G/100G fabric uplink ports
SE1: Silicon One E100 first-generation ASIC architecture, massive unified shared buffer, ultra-expanded L2/L3 TCAM scale, full-port wire-rate MACsec, model-driven streaming telemetry, dual operating modes: standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric modeCisco

2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)

Cisco Nexus N9K-C9348Y12C-SE1, 1RU rack-mount high-performance hybrid optical ToR leaf data center switch, 48 × 1/10/25/50G SFP28 downlink ports plus 12 × 40/100G QSFP28 breakout-capable fabric uplink ports, 5.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable Platinum-efficiency redundant power supplies and six 5+1 N+1 variable-speed fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or native ACI fabric operation, optimized for 25G/50G AI/GPU training clusters, low-latency HPC parallel computing, converged FCoE storage-compute fabrics, multi-pod ACI deployments and scalable hyperscale multi-tenant leaf-spine data center architecturesCisco.

3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph

The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9348Y12C-SE1 is a compact 1RU fixed Layer 2/3 top-of-rack leaf switch built on Cisco Silicon One E100 SE1 ASIC, purpose-engineered for modern AI/ML GPU racks, high-performance computing (HPC), virtualized enterprise unified storage fabrics and Cisco ACI Application Centric Infrastructure multi-pod environments. It delivers a flexible mixed-speed optical port layout balancing dense server downlink density and high-bandwidth fabric uplink scalability: 48 universal SFP28 downlink ports paired with 12 QSFP28 multi-rate uplink ports for spine interconnection, delivering full wire-rate non-blocking forwarding with total switching bandwidth of 5.6 Tbps and high-throughput packet forwarding for minimum 64-byte Ethernet framesCisco.

The 48 SFP28 downlink ports are split into two speed tiers: the first 32 ports support auto-negotiated 1G/10G/25G, while the remaining 16 bottom-row ports add native 50G SFP support for high-speed GPU direct connections. All SFP28 ports work with SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G/50G transceivers, passive short-reach DAC twinax cables, and 8G/16G/32G Fibre Channel modules for unified FCoE storage fabrics. The 12 QSFP28 fabric uplink ports natively run 40G and 100G, with full independent breakout profiles: 2×100G, 4×50G, 4×25G, 4×10G via breakout cables and QSA adapters to enable seamless fabric migration from 25G to 100G core inter-switch links. Every data port supports hardware wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption natively, alongside VXLANsec for end-to-end overlay fabric security without external security appliancesCisco.

Powered by the Silicon One E100 SE1 silicon, this platform delivers industry-leading scalability metrics: 1.25M MAC address entries, 2M IPv4 LPM routes, 1M IPv6 LPM routes and 128K multicast routes, plus a large unified shared dynamic packet buffer to absorb heavy burst traffic generated by parallel GPU training workloads. The ASIC integrates native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing and deeply optimized RoCEv2 lossless congestion control with PFC for ultra-low-latency HPC and AI clusters. High-performance model-driven unsampled gNMI/IPFIX streaming telemetry integrates fully with Cisco Tetration Analytics and Nexus Dashboard for real-time end-to-end full-fabric observability, alongside expanded VRF segmentation capacity for isolated multi-tenant cloud workloadsCisco.

The chassis integrates dual independent out-of-band management interfaces: dedicated 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 Ethernet and SFP multi-rate fiber remote management uplink ports, plus mini-USB RS232 local console and single USB 2.0 Type-A port to support POAP zero-touch provisioning, offline configuration backup and firmware upgrades. Dual hot-swappable power supplies and six N+1 redundant fan trays eliminate single points of hardware failure, with two standardized airflow variants (PI port-side intake / PE port-side exhaust) selectable at order time; all power and fan modules must match airflow direction during operation to avoid thermal overload. This switch supports two independent operating modes: modular standalone Cisco NX-OS for traditional routed data center architectures, or native ACI fabric mode for policy-driven automated multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. Its space-saving 1RU hybrid-speed optical design maximizes rack density for converged GPU compute and storage leaf deployments with flexible 100G uplink scalability to the fabric spine layer.

4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications

SFP28 Downlink Ports (48 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots, all MACsec-capable)

Port speed split rule:

Ports 1–32: Auto-negotiate 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps

Ports 33–48: Auto-negotiate 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps, 50 Gbps (native 50G SFP support)
Supported transceivers & cables: SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G/50G, passive DAC cables up to 3m; 8G/16G/32G Fibre Channel transceivers for FCoE unified storage fabrics

QSFP28 Fabric Uplink Ports (12 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots, all MACsec-capable)

Native supported line rates: 40GBASE, 100GBASE
Full independent breakout options per port: 2×100G, 4×50G, 4×25G, 4×10G via breakout cables & QSA adapters
Compatible transceivers: QSFP28 100G SR4/LR4/ER4/ZR, QSFP+ 40G SR4/LR4, SFP28 25G, SFP+ 10G via QSA, passive QSFP28 DAC twinax cables

Management & Auxiliary Ports

1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 out-of-band management port
1 × SFP multi-rate fiber remote out-of-band management uplink port
1 × Mini-USB RS232 console port for local CLI access
1 × USB 2.0 Type-A port for firmware upload, configuration backup and POAP deployment

Power & Cooling

Dual hot-swappable power supply options (1+1 load-sharing redundancy, non-disruptive hot-swap):

750W AC PI, 750W AC PE, 1100W AC PI, 1100W AC PE, 1100W DC PI/PE, 1100W HVAC/HVDC PI/PE
Six variable-speed fan trays (5+1 N+1 redundancy):

NXA-SFAN-35CFM-PI (burgundy label, port-side intake)

NXA-SFAN-35CFM-PE (blue label, port-side exhaust)
Power efficiency: 80Plus Platinum certified
Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C full load; non-operating storage range: -40°C ~ 70°C
Humidity tolerance: 5%–90% non-condensing operating; max operating altitude: 4000 meters

Physical Form Factor

Dimensions: 1RU standard 19-inch rack chassis

Height: 4.37 cm (1.72 in), Width: 43.94 cm (17.3 in), Depth: 57.1 cm (22.47 in)
Empty weight (without PSUs and fans): ~8.6 kg / 19.0 lb
Compliance: RoHS-6, NEBS Level 3, global safety, EMC and telecom regulatory certifications

Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks

Total switching capacity: 5.6 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
Forwarding rate: High wire-rate throughput optimized for mixed 25G/50G/100G workloads
Shared dynamic packet buffer: Large Silicon One unified buffer pool for cross-port burst traffic absorption
MAC address table size: 1,250,000 MAC forwarding entries
IPv4 unicast LPM route table capacity: 2,000,000 entries
IPv6 unicast LPM route table capacity: 1,000,000 entries
Multicast route table: 128,000 (S,G) / (*,G) entries
VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
Maximum isolated VRF instances: 16,000 multi-tenant virtual routing tables
System memory: 32GB DRAM + 128GB high-capacity onboard SSD storage
Typical cut-through switching latency: Less than 1 microsecond for minimum-size Ethernet frames

5. Core Software Feature Suite (Dual NX-OS / ACI Operating Modes)

Layer 2 & Layer 3 Routing

Static routing, RIP, OSPFv2/v3, EIGRP, full BGP routing suite, VRRP, PIM sparse/dense multicast; full FCoE support via designated SFP28 downlink ports for unified compute-storage fabrics

Cloud Fabric Overlay

Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN symmetric & asymmetric routing, multi-tenant VXLAN segmentation, fabric multicast optimization, advanced lossless RoCEv2 congestion control optimized for GPU/AI/HPC low-latency training workload clusters

Enterprise & Fabric Security

802.1X port authentication, MAB MAC bypass authentication, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, CoPP control-plane policing, hardware 128/256-bit MACsec + VXLANsec encryption on all 60 data ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust micro-segmentation for fabric isolation

Monitoring & Telemetry

High-performance model-driven sampled/unsampled gNMI/IPFIX streaming telemetry, ERSPAN remote port mirroring, local SPAN/VSPAN, real-time per-port/per-queue buffer utilization visibility, full Cisco Tetration flow export compatibility for end-to-end fabric analytics

SE1 Silicon One Exclusive Capabilities

Unified large shared buffer architecture for AI burst absorption, expanded encryption suite (MACsec/VXLANsec), native OpenConfig/YANG model support, ultra-scaled LPM/multicast TCAM tables, optimized multi-pod inter-fabric routing logic

Automation & DevOps

POAP zero-touch provisioning, NX-API REST JSON/XML APIs, embedded Linux Bash shell, native Python scripting, Ansible/Puppet/Chef full integration, containerized application hosting via Cisco Application Framework (CAF), hot patching and ISSU in-service software upgrade without leaf fabric traffic downtime

High Availability

Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, redundant control plane, hot-swappable power supply and fan FRUs for non-disruptive field maintenance

6. Typical Deployment Use Cases

Top-of-Rack leaf switch for converged 25G/50G GPU virtualization, AI model training and high-speed storage racks with flexible 100G spine uplinks
Low-latency leaf aggregation node for HPC parallel computing and big-data analytics workload clusters
Converged compute/storage fabric leaf supporting FCoE block storage traffic for enterprise unified data center architectures
Dedicated leaf access node for medium and large-scale ACI multi-pod Application Centric Infrastructure fabrics
Hybrid migration leaf for mixed-generation 10G/25G/50G server environments with upgradeable 100G high-bandwidth uplink capacity to spine layer
Hyperscale IaaS multi-tenant cloud leaf optimized for balanced compute/storage workload density and future 100G fabric expansion

7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph

The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9348Y12C-SE1 is a compact 1RU SE1 Silicon One generation hybrid optical cloud data center ToR leaf switch equipped with 48 multi-rate 1/10/25/50G SFP28 downlink ports and twelve breakout-capable multi-rate 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, delivering 5.6 Tbps non-blocking switching performance with dual Platinum redundant power and six 5+1 redundant fan trays. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and native ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it features the first-gen Silicon One E100 ASIC with massive unified shared buffer, ultra-expanded L2/L3 TCAM routing scale, full-port wire-rate MACsec/VXLANsec encryption and optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport, serving as a flexible balanced-speed leaf aggregation switch for AI/GPU HPC, converged storage, multi-pod ACI fabrics and scalable hyperscale multi-tenant cloud data centers built around 25G/50G/100G optical server infrastructure.


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