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Now available: A Guide to Access Processors brings you the newest developments in the VoP and Access NPU market. Get up to speed on the products and vendors focused on chips for the access infrastructure. For more information, or to order this report, visit our web site. Ikanos Improves VDSL2 Integration This week, Ikanos announced samples of VDSL/VDSL2 chipsets for the optical network unit (ONU) and for customer premises equipment (CPE). These chips are targeted at multi-tenant and multi dwelling applications. In these applications, the ONU terminates a fiber loop, typically using PON technologies, and transfers the data to subscriber modems over copper media using VDSL2. This PON+DSL configuration is being deployed in densely populated areas of Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. The new Ikanos devices support the full 30MHz spectrum specified by VDSL2 for a symmetric data rate of 100Mbps over a few hundred meters. The ONU chip set, called the FX100100-4-EX, consists of an 8-port data pump, a 4-port analog front end (AFE), and a single port line driver. Compared to the company's earlier FX product, the EX increases the integration on the data pump and the AFE as well as reducing the power dissipation and extending the distance between the ONU and the subscriber. The EX is the highest-density VDSL2 chip set for equipment with eight or more ports. The FX100100S-4-EX CPE product consists of single-chip data pump and AFE; only an external line driver is needed to complete the solution. This level of integration is second only to Infineon, which offers a single-chip VDSL2 device with integrated line driver. Both new chip sets follow the functional partition used in Ikanos's SmartLeap and CleverConnect devices, which the company is already shipping. Consequently, existing Ikanos customers should have a simple upgrade from these earlier 12MHz chip sets to the new 30MHz chip sets. As the leading vendor of VDSL chips, Ikanos is well positioned to establish a lead in VDSL2 devices. —Jag Complete
coverage of Ikanos's VDSL and VDSL2 products appears in our
new report A Guide
to Next-Generation Broadband Interface Chips. Seeking physical-layer technology to complement its multi-gigabit Layer 2 devices, TranSwitch has announced its intent to acquire Mysticom, based in Israel. Mysticom has a line of 10-Gigabit Ethernet transceivers (multi-channel retimers) in production. The transceivers are designed specifically for optical modules (XENPAK, XPAK, X2) and copper cable (10GBase-CX4). The chips can also be used as backplane transceivers. TranSwitch's product portfolio includes multi-gigabit mappers and switches. These chips include serdes technology that TranSwitch has licensed. With the $15 million Mysticom acquisition, TranSwitch will be able to use in-house serdes designs and integrate the complete PHY function in future 10-gigabit mappers and switches. Mysticom will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary and will continue to supply intellectual property cores. Most of Mysticom's revenue comes from licensing its Fast Ethernet PHY core to companies such as IBM, Samsung, and TI. Mysticom is also signing licensees for its Gigabit Ethernet copper PHY. TranSwitch will continue the intellectual property business, but it is not seeking to expand it beyond the GigE cores. TranSwitch's impetus for the acquisition, however, is the acquisition of a high-speed analog design center that will enable the company to integrate 10-gigabit transceivers in future products. With Mysticom, TranSwitch gets a design center that, while small, has already commercialized such transceivers and has a track record of providing PHYs for integration with other functions. —Joe Complete
coverage of Mysticom appears in our report A
Guide to High-Speed Interconnects. Fulcrum Microsystems has announced a family of 10Gbps Ethernet switches called FocalPoint. The first two members of the family are a switch for 24 ports of up to 10Gbps and a switch for 8 ports of 10Gbps plus 16 ports of 2.5Gbps or 1Gbps. Fulcrum uses its asynchronous technology to reduce switch latency, compared with traditional Ethernet switches. The switches can be used in ATCA platforms, storage systems, and data centers. Although Fulcrum uses pause frames for flow control, it may need to develop congestion management for lossless switching. With FocalPoint, Fulcrum is one of the first vendors to develop dense, scalable, and low latency 10Gbps Ethernet switches. —Jag
On January 25, The Linley Group will host the first seminar of its Linley Tech 2006 series. This one-day event will focus on CPU cores and other licensable intellectual property (IP) and is intended for designers of ASICs and SoCs (systems on a chip). Leading IP vendors will explain how their technology can be used to in networking and communications applications. Get the information you need to jumpstart your design! Attendance is free to qualified attendees; others pay $495. This seminar will be held in San Jose at the Doubletree Hotel. Mark your calendars and register now at our web site. Your free attendance is made possible by our event sponsors: Freescale, Tensilica, ARC International, and SafeNet.
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