NVIDIA MCX713106AS-CEA SmartNIC Firmware 28.43.2026-LTS

Firmware which is added at the time of manufacturing, is used to run user programs on the device and can be thought of as the software that allows hardware to run. Embedded firmware is used to control the functions of various hardware devices and systems, much like a computer’s operating system (OS) controls the function of software applications. Firmware may be written into read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or flash memory.

The ConnectX-7 smart host channel adapter (HCA) provides up to four ports of connectivity and 400Gb/s of throughput, hardware-accelerated networking, storage, security, and manageability services at data center scale for cloud, telecommunications, AI, and enterprise workloads. ConnectX-7 empowers agile and high-performance networking solutions with features such as Accelerated Switching and Packet Processing (ASAP2), advanced RoCE, GPUDirect Storage, and in-line hardware acceleration for Transport Layer Security (TLS), IP Security (IPsec), and MAC Security (MACsec) encryption and decryption. ConnectX-7 enables organizations to meet their current and future networking needs in both high-bandwidth and high-density environments.

The ConnectX-7 smart host channel adapter (HCA), featuring the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand architecture, provides the highest networking performance available to take on the world’s most challenging workloads. ConnectX-7 provides ultra-low latency, 400Gb/s throughput, and innovative NVIDIA In-Network Computing acceleration engines to provide additional acceleration to deliver the scalability and feature-rich technology needed for supercomputers, artificial intelligence, and hyperscale cloud data centers.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed an issue that resulted in health buffer fatal assert and packet drops when running traffic on several path migration QPs.
- Fixed a reference counter issue that resulted in the firmware assertion 0x889f with CQ reference counter underflow to solve a race condition.
- Fixed an issue that caused the internal mechanism responsible for clearing the allocated MCTP message tag to not function properly. As a result, the device was unable to send the discovery notify AEN and clear the discovery flag in a loop.
- Fixed a non-compliance issue related to SyncE which resulted in Transient response G.8273.2 - Class B response.
- Improved the VQoS algorithm.

Backward Compatibility:

- DPA Outbox Blocking-Mode: As of firmware v28.43.2026, when the switch DPA Outbox configuration is in non-blocking mode, where DPA Outbox requests complete immediately (do not wait for completion), DPA Kernel, FlexIO SDK and DPA applications should use the "busy" bit check before performing DPA Outbox operations. To avoid any issues, it is recommended to update the firmware version together with the FlexIO SDK and DPA Applications.
- DPA Thread Context: Due to performance optimization, as of firmware v28.43.2026, DPA Thread context is changed in the DPA Kernel and such change will affect DPA applications. To avoid any issues, it is recommended to update the firmware version together with the FlexIO SDK and DPA Applications. 

About Network Adapter Firmware:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic firmware that helps the computer to recognize the newly attached device.

However, proper software must be applied if you want to make use of all features that the network adapter has available. This task also allows computers to properly recognize all device characteristics such as manufacturer, chipset, technology, and others.

Updating the adapter's firmware and utilities version might improve overall performance and stability, increase transfer speeds, fix different compatibility problems and several network-related errors, as well as bring various other changes.

To install this release, simply get the package, extract it if necessary, run the setup, and follow the instructions displayed on-screen. When done, don't forget to perform a system restart and reconnect the network adapter to make sure that all changes take effect properly.

Without further ado, if you intend to apply this version, click the download button and install the package. Moreover, check with our website as often as possible so that you don't miss a single new release.