Editor: Linley
Gwennap In This Issue
A Guide to Switch Fabrics is now available for immediate delivery. Get up to speed on the latest information on this tumultuous market. Click here to find out how. NPU
Wire Is Now "The Linley Wire" The Linley Wire will continue to highlight the newest technologies and chips for networking applications. Specific areas of coverage include network processors; communications processors; networking memory; backplane technology; chips for Ethernet, Sonet, wireless LAN, PCI Express, and security and content processors. Hifn Exhumes IBM NPU Security-processor vendor Hifn opened the year with a shocker, acquiring IBM's dormant PowerNP network processors for $15 million in cash. This acquisition comes nearly a year after IBM terminated development of the next-generation PowerNP 4GX and all future products in this line. Hifn will now market and support the existing NP4GS3 "Rainier" NPU, although IBM will continue to manufacture the chip as a foundry product. Sources indicate that several companies expressed interest in the PowerNP products after IBM's pullout, but this interest waned after IBM could not close a deal over the summer, and by the end of 2003, Hifn had the best remaining offer. The PowerNP family still holds about 15% of the NPU market on the basis of shipments to existing customers, and we estimate the products could generate $10 million in revenue in 2004. Hifn did not buy the products merely for their revenue stream; the company intends to develop new products using the Rainier architecture. It will probably start by taking the nearly completed 4GX design out of mothballs; this design, possibly with minor modifications, could sample in 2H04. Because the acquisition does not include any IBM employees, Hifn is staffing design, support, and marketing teams for these NPU products. It plans to announce an NPU roadmap within the next month. Rather than compete head-on with Intel, Motorola, and others in the general NPU market, Hifn says it will focus on security and services applications, including firewalls, access lists, and authentication. By combining Rainier and follow-on products with its HIPP III and Meterflow technologies, Hifn can offer comprehensive solutions for these applications. Initially, these solutions will require multiple chips, but eventually the company may deliver more-integrated solutions. We believe this acquisition enhances Hifn's position in the security space and broadens the company's offerings, allowing it to pursue related markets. With its new programmable architecture, Hifn is better positioned to compete against Cavium and Broadcom. The challenge will be to build hardware and software teams that can support and extend the new NPU product line. —LG Complete
coverage of Hifn and its security products appears in our recent
report "A Guide
to Security and Content Processors." Acquisitions
Heat Up Gigabit Ethernet Market Cicada had raised more than $37 million in venture funding. The startup entered the GbE-over-copper PHY market in 2002 with a quad-port PHY built in 0.18-micron technology and also offered a single-port PHY in 0.15-micron technology. During 2003, Cicada established a partnership with Via to sell single-chip (MAC/PHY) controllers into the LAN-on-motherboard market. That relationship may not continue, however, as Vitesse and Via are likely to view each other as competitors in the Ethernet-switch segment. Today, Cicada announced new quad-port PHYs built in 0.13-micron technology that should compete well with Broadcom and Marvell's latest PHYs. Unlike Vitesse, Agere acquired a development-stage startup and used its stock as currency. Agere paid about $21 million in stock for Silicon Valley startup TeraBlaze, adding GbE-switch technology to its portfolio. Incorporated in April 2000, TeraBlaze never emerged from stealth mode and had only 16 employees. We believe the company was initially developing a multiservice switch fabric but later redirected the technology into Ethernet switching. The startup disclosed only one round of funding totaling $8 million. Before founding TeraBlaze, CEO Shankar Mukherjee was director of Lucent Microelectronics' (now Agere's) LAN switching division. With this latest acquisition, Agere has signaled that it's serious about attacking the GbE market using standard products. After acquiring Massana in August 2003, Agere is now sampling a single-port GbE-over-copper PHY. Agere expects to sample GbE-switch silicon bundled with multiport PHY products in 2H04. Despite Broadcom and Marvell's dominance of the merchant GbE-silicon market, the forecasted growth in GbE shipments has proven irresistible to newcomers. With a complete solution in production, Vitesse will join the battle for 1H04 design wins. Agere is betting that GbE design-win opportunities will still abound when its products finally reach the market later this year. —BW Look for
complete coverage of Gigabit Ethernet silicon in
an upcoming report from The Linley Group. 2004
Preview: Storage Silicon The lucrative SAN component market has recently gained several new players—for instance, Vitesse, which supplies FC interconnect devices, and LSI Logic, which supplies FC controllers. Traditional semiconductor vendors such as Agilent and AMCC have joined the fray, challenging the market leaders by supplying inexpensive chips to third-party vendors. Consequently, we expect the selling price of HBAs and other FC products to fall by at least 50% over the next three to four years. In 2004, new serial implementations of the venerable SCSI and ATA standards will pose a fresh threat to Fibre Channel. Serial attached SCSI (SAS) and serial ATA (SATA) provide simpler cabling than previous versions and approach Fibre Channel bandwidth at significantly reduced cost. These technologies will stimulate the development of new high-volume applications and also replace FC in all but the largest SANs. A new protocol called iSCSI, which routes storage traffic over the LAN, offers the possibility of a unified network. Storage processors from companies such as Astute, iStor, and iVivity can bridge between the LAN and storage arrays, eliminating FC interconnect. We expect shipments of IP SAN devices to exceed FC SAN shipments by 2007, even as SAS and SATA erode Fibre Channel's position in storage arrays. The storage-networking chip market is ripe for market-share changes through these impending technology transitions. Established players that are not able to adapt will open the door to new entrants that aggressively embrace the winning technologies. —SI Complete coverage of Fibre Channel chips and storage processors appears in our new report "A Guide to Storage Networking Silicon."
In December 2003, Layer N sampled its LNN2010 UltraLock SSL processor and a PCI card, the LNN1010, based on the UltraLock chip. Rated at 10,000 SSL transactions per second (1,024-bit keys) and 600Mbps of bulk throughput, the LNN1010 uniquely includes a TCP proxy function in addition to cryptography, easing system integration and providing full SSL offload. The chip lists for $875 and the PCI card for $1,800. Future versions of the PCI card with an expanded memory configuration will improve bulk throughput to 1Gbps. —SI Complete coverage of Layer N's security processors appears in our recent report "A Guide to Security and Content Processors." On January 6th, Sandburst announced additional investment of $19.5 million, bringing its total funding to $56 million. Led by prior investors, the new funding is a vote of confidence in the startup's products and management. Accton Technologies, a Taiwanese system manufacturer, also invested and plans to offer switches using Sandburst chips. Other strategic investors included Analog Devices and Intel Capital. The company's HiBeam product consists of a packet processor, traffic manager, and switch fabric that are targeted at Ethernet applications in the enterprise backbone and metro networks. —JB More information on Sandburst and HiBeam appears in our new report "A Guide to Switch Fabrics."
Did you know that The Linley Group now offers subscription services for our reports? This service provides a very cost-effective means to deliver our analysis to your organization. No more fighting over a single copy; with corporate-wide access, each person has the information at their fingertips when they need it. The subscription service also ensures that you receive each new report as soon as it is released, with no additional paperwork. Our subscription services are flexible and can be tailored for small, medium, and large organizations. For further details, please contact Candace Doyle.
EE Times: Fibre Channel Joyride Nears End
To receive The Linley Wire via e-mail, click here
|
