Inter-Chassis Link (ICL) connectivity is a unique Brocade DCX feature that provides short-distance connectivity among two or more backbone chassis—a good option for customers who want to build a powerful core without sacrificing device ports for Inter-Switch Link (ISL) connectivity.

ICLs are 8 Gbit/sec ISL connections between two DCX switches on the CR8 (core) blades

- Speed locked at 8 Gbit/sec

- Copper-based proprietary connector

Image-1 Triangular Configuration 3 x Brocade DCXs with ICL connectivity

- No SFPs

- Each cable provides 16 x 8 Gbit/sec bandwidth (128Gbit/s)

- Licensed feature

512 Gbit/sec total bandwidth (1 Tbit/sec bidirectional)

2 Core blades x 32 ports per blade x 8 Gbit/sec per port = 512 Gbit/sec total bandwidth between two DCX chassis

Two connector ports per blade; Each connector port aggregates 16 ICL ports (128 Gbit/sec bandwidth per cable)

Please refer to Brocade Document  linked here for more detail.