Editor: Linley
Gwennap In This Issue
Save the date! Mark your calendars for July 21 when The Linley Group, Freescale, Wintegra, and AMCC host a free one-day seminar on Processors for Access Equipment. Details on this event will be announced soon. If you missed our recent seminar on Fabrics and High-Speed Interconnects, you can now request a free copy of the proceedings. Simply fill out the proceedings registration page to obtain the download link and access code. This event was sponsored by IDT, StarGen, Sandburst, Intel, Xilinx, and RapidIO Trade Association. For further information on our events, visit our web site. RAID-on-Chip Competition Heats Up At SNW in April, Vitesse jumped into the RAID-on-chip fray, sampling a family of SAS/SATA PCI-Express-interfaced controllers based partly on technology licensed from Adaptec. Broadcom and LSI already offer single-chip RAID controllers. Broadcom’s BCM8603, which sampled in February, combines eight SAS/SATA-II ports rated at 3Gbps with a MIPS CPU, dual PCI interfaces (PCI-X and PCI Express), RAID 5 hardware acceleration, and a DDR memory controller. The BCM8603 is bundled with Broadcom’s XelCore RAID software, which uniquely provides transparent support for multi-controller storage arrays. In a novel pricing model, Broadcom enables customers to install features through firmware downloads even on field units; customers pay for the particular set of features that they order. Pricing for the 8603, in 1K quantities, starts at $60 and includes RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10 support. Extra features such as on-line capacity migration or RAID level migration are not included in this base price. At SNW, LSI Logic demonstrated its 8-port PCI-Express RAID SoC, the LSI SAS1078. The 1078 is a natural successor to LSI’s 8- and 4-port SAS controllers, which already integrated hardware support for RAID functions. These devices provide support for RAID 6 with advanced data guarding (ADG), which provides data recovery in the event of two drive failures; this feature is particularly relevant to arrays that use lower-reliability SATA arrays. LSI bundles its own MegaRAID stack with the 1078; the company has not yet released pricing. Unlike Broadcom, LSI is developing a family of SAS expanders that storage vendors can use to interconnect storage arrays; Vitesse also offers a strong SAS and SATA interconnect product line. The availability of enterprise storage features at consumer prices opens several new applications, mainly benefiting small-business and home users. RAID-controller vendors that have prioritized ease of use will come out ahead in this market: the challenge is to simplify initial installation, drive replacement or expansion, and RAID-level migration to bring these tasks within the reach of non-technical users. Broadband-enabled media savvy households will be the first to add networked storage for static—or streaming—multimedia files. This trend will be a boon for RAID controller vendors as well as disk-drive vendors. Other RAID vendors—such as AMCC—will undoubtedly enter the RAID-on-chip market soon. —SI Complete
coverage of storage-networking silicon appears in our new report
A Guide to Storage Networking Silicon. The last month has seen the introduction of significant new products from the leading vendors of GbE switch chips: Broadcom, Marvell, and SwitchCore. Following the January announcement of its first StrataXGS III products, last week Broadcom added new family members that address metro and LAN-backbone applications. The StrataXGS III 600 series adds support for MPLS and other carrier oriented features on top of the existing IPv6-capable Layer 3 features of the first family members. The 600 series also uses external packet memory with ECC protection and enables table expansion using external memories. The 600 series trades port density for these new expansion capabilities. The BCM56601 is a 12xGbE switch with one 12Gbps HiGig+ uplink port, while the BCM56602 offers one XAUI/CX4 10GbE port and one HiGig+ uplink. Like Broadcom, SwitchCore has a new chip that targets carrier designs. But rather than supporting MPLS, SwitchCore’s new CXE-2139 is designed for access applications that use complex VLAN schemes with double tagging (Q-in-Q). The 28xGbE switch supports advanced QoS features for up to 4K subscribers, which is especially attractive for IP-DSLAM designs. Like its CXE-2130 predecessor, the CXE-2139 supports IPv4 forwarding but not IPv6. The SwitchCore device also supports optional external memories for buffers and tables. Marvell, meanwhile, has added Layer 3 capabilities to its Prestera-DX chips for stackable designs. The flagship DX273 offers the same 24xGbE+3x10GbE port density as the existing DX270, but the new chip adds support for IPv4 and IPv6 forwarding. The DX273 uses an on-chip forwarding table to support up to 1K prefixes/hosts. Broadcom and SwitchCore are bringing Ethernet economics to carrier designs that have been the domain of ASICs and ATM. In particular, access designs such as IP-DSLAMs are an attractive secondary market for these GbE switch vendors. Marvell has upgraded its enterprise offering to better compete with StrataXGS III, which should help drive Layer 3 support as a baseline feature in managed designs. In this hotly contested market, customers are the ultimate winners, getting expanding feature sets at ever-lower prices. —BW Complete
coverage of GbE switch chips appears in our new report A
Guide to Gigabit and 10G Ethernet Silicon, Second Edition. Last week, Jungo announced the availability of OpenSMB, a multifunction application suite targeting SMB gateways that includes security functions (stateful packet-inspection firewall and VPN), as well as hosted security and content-filtering services and remote-management support. OpenSMB’s integral QoS support and carrier-grade VoIP signaling (H.323, SIP, and MGCP) functions pave the way for VoIP implementations, which will be attractive to small businesses. The OpenSMB product follows Jungo’s successful OpenRG (residential gateway) application suite, giving Jungo an entry into the more demanding small-business market. ODMs that adopt OpenSMB will find an expedient way to deliver the required gateway features as well as support for leading communications processors from Intel, Broadcom, Conexant, Infineon, and others. —SI Complete coverage of communications processors appears in our report A Guide to Communications Processors. EZchip has taped out its NP-2 network processor and expects to begin customer sampling in June. The company now claims nearly 20 design wins for the NP-2. EZchip also says one dozen NP-1c designs have reached production and 20 additional designs are in the pipeline. The company’s 1Q05 sales rose about 9% sequentially to $1.9 million. Although EZchip is unlikely to reach breakeven until the NP-2 reaches volume shipments, the startup has more than $20 million in cash to see it through. —BW Complete
coverage of EZchip appears in our report A
Guide to Network Processors.
Merchant switch-fabric design wins increased significantly in 2H04, a trend that we expect to continue through 2005. As OEMs developing routers and switches for SAN, enterprise, carrier, multiservice, and computing equipment continue the migration from internal fabric ASICs to merchant fabric silicon, fabric vendors are moving from proprietary to standard architectures. But several competing specifications are vying to become the next fabric standard. Although a few fabric vendors are developing fabrics based on standards such as ASI and RapidFabric, selecting the right product for a specific application can be a daunting task. Switch fabrics are complex products, and to date there has been little published material to rely on for reference or product evaluation. Each vendor touts a unique architecture and delivers different features or system configurations. There are many tradeoffs among chip count, power dissipation, scalability, redundancy, and delivered performance. A Guide to Switch Fabrics is the ultimate guide for this dynamic market. This new edition covers switch-fabric requirements, features, architectures, and trends. We provide in-depth coverage of the newest switch fabrics from AMCC, Vitesse, IDT, Agere, AMCC, Dune, Sandburst, TeraChip, StarGen, Xyratex, and Tundra. Also included is analysis of new fabric standards such as ASI, RapidFabric, ATCA 3.0, and the impact these standards will have on silicon vendors and OEMs. The report provides market growth trends and forecasts of the available business opportunities. Order by May 31 to take advantage of a special prepublication
discount. For more information on this report, visit
our web site. Linley's Latest Column: Nikkei
Electronics: How Far Will the Cell Processor
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