The Linley Group

After appearing to reach the end of their road, the IXP28xx network processors have found new pavement. This week, Intel announced a deal with startup Netronome Systems that re-establishes a roadmap for its NPUs. Under the terms of the agreement, Netronome receives a license to develop future IXP-derived NPUs with 16 or more or micro engines. While it develops a next-generation device, Netronome will also support new designs for the existing IXP28xx (aka Castine) products and assumes responsibility for the IXP28xx SDK. Intel retains full responsibility for all other IXP products and will continue to support new designs for the IXP23xx (aka Westport).

In parallel with negotiating this agreement, Netronome has been staffing a chip-design team in San Jose. Jim Finnegan, a former general manager of Intel's Network Processor Division, has assumed the role of Netronome Senior VP of Silicon Engineering. The chip team, which includes key ex-Intel engineers, has already begun work on a successor to the IXP2855. The forthcoming NFP3200 targets 10Gbps full-duplex performance, or about twice the performance of the IXP2855. The new NPU will also eliminate the IXP2855's requirement for QDR SRAM and Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), which have a large impact on system cost. Netronome expects to sample the NFP3200 in 1H09.

Netronome's two-pronged strategy is to supply the NFP3200 for traditional switch/router designs while also advancing its board- and system-level products for Layer 4-7 applications. For the latter, Netronome has also received a license to Intel's QuickPath Interconnect, which will allow tighter coupling of Netronome's coprocessors with Intel IA processors. On the embedded/communications side, Intel can now focus on the Tolapai communications processor, which is the logical successor to Westport. Netronome's next challenge is rapid development of the NFP3200. Significant IXP28xx customers hang in the balance. —Bob

Last month, EZchip announced plans to enter the access market with a new line of NPUs. Due to sample in 3Q08, the NPA line will include three distinct models distinguished by their network-port configurations. Based on the same architecture as EZchip's NP-3, the NPA line targets Ethernet-centric access applications such as GPON/EPON and VDSL2 aggregation, demarcation devices, and wireless backhaul. Whereas the NP-3 is rated at 30Gbps of throughput, the NPA chips will provide 10Gbps of processing and traffic management bandwidth. Like the NP-3, the NPA chips offload OAM processing. New to EZchip's NPUs is support for timing recovery; the NPA chips will support synchronous Ethernet and IEEE 1588 v2.

The top of the line is the NPA-3, which includes eight GbE ports and a pair of 10GbE ports. All ports use serdes-based interfaces: XAUI for 10GbE and SGMII for GbE. The SGMII ports also support non-standard 2.5Gbps operation for PON and backplane applications. The NPA-2 sports 16 SGMII ports and no 10GbE ports. Like the NPA-3, the NPA-2 supports 2.5Gbps operation on its SGMII ports. The NPA-1 sits at the low end of the line and includes only eight GbE ports that operate at up to 1Gbps. All three NPA chips share a common footprint and are software compatible with the NP-3 in addition to each other. Volume pricing starts at less than $100 for the NPA-1.

Unlike most access NPUs, EZchip's new NPA devices do not support ATM interworking. This shortcoming limits potential NPA designs to those that do not require support for ATM in addition to Ethernet or IP. On the other hand, the NPA-1 should deliver impressive price/performance: 10Gbps for less than $100. For bandwidth-hungry applications like PON and VDSL aggregation, the NPA line should be unmatched in this regard. And with the NP-4 on the horizon, EZchip will soon offer a single NPU architecture that scales from $100 to 100Gbps. —Bob

Fulcrum and Broadcom Advance 10GbE Switches

This week, Fulcrum and Broadcom each introduced next-generation Ethernet switches. Fulcrum's FM4000 switch is significant upgrade, while Broadcom's new product moves to 65nm and offers incremental improvement on features. Broadcom's BCM56820 increases the number of 10GbE ports to 24 and reduces power dissipation. The 65nm process should reduce power dissipation, but Broadcom declined to release any power data. The company also claims to offer non-blocking performance, but declined to provide details of criteria to achieve this performance.

Upgrading the first-generation Focal Point switches, Fulcrum's FM4000 product line is a family of 10GbE switch chips that have customers in data-center and telecom applications. Fulcrum's FM4224 is a 24-port 10GbE switch, while the remaining devices offer fewer ports or combination of 10GbE and GbE ports. Arastra, an Ethernet-switch OEM, announced data-center 10GbE switches that use Fulcrum's FM4000 products. With a power dissipation of less than 12W per port and pricing of less than $400 per 10GbE port (less optics), these products, along with Broadcom's switches, are enabling new data-center economics.

Compared with Fulcrum's first-generation switches, the FM4224 adds Layer 3 and Layer 4 support, per-priority pause, and tag switching. Broadcom's earlier products already supported Layer 3 and Layer 4. Layer 3 routing and ACL support enables Fulcrum to compete with Broadcom for aggregation systems. With the addition of an out-of-band tag, the FM4224 enables large scalability in a non-blocking architecture. This feature is important for large computing clusters.

Relative to its competitors, the FM4224 leads on latency and non-blocking scalability. Low latency is important in applications ranging from HPC to telecom switches. Fulcrum has increased the frame memory, which results in support for more IPv4/IPv6 addresses and ACLs than any competitor offers. Anyone evaluating Ethernet switches for applications that need low latency, terabit scalability, and Layer 3/4 support should have Fulcrum on top of their short list. —JB

Complete coverage of Fulcrum switch products appears in our report A Guide to Ethernet Switch and PHY Chips.

News in Brief

Last week, AMCC announced the industry's first dual-port 10GbE transceivers for 10GBase-KR/SR/LR/LRM line card and backplane applications. These chips support dual 10G XAUI to 10GBase-SR/LR/LRM physical media devices. The QT2235 targets XFP modules, while the QT2225 incorporates EDC and signal conditioning for applications using SFP+ modules. The QT2225 is capable of supporting up to 300m of reach over FDDI-grade fiber-sufficient for vertical risers. For backplane applications, the chip can support up to 1m of PCB traces-more than enough for most backplanes. Both chips are sampling now. With these new products, AMCC can establish leadership in 10Gbps optical PHY products as well as restart its revenue growth in this segment. —JB

Complete coverage of AMCC 10GbE transceivers appears in our report A Guide to Ethernet Switch and PHY Chips.

New Report on Broadband Chips

The growing popularity of Internet-based video is driving demand for high-speed broadband technologies such as VDSL2, EPON, and GPON. These standards also support the shift from traditional ATM-based voice and data to VoIP, video, and data using packet-based Ethernet services. Telco carriers and their competitors are deploying new technologies to support these services, although the actual broadband technology deployed differs by geographic region. With cable providers now offering a triple-play of voice, data, and video services, traditional telephony carriers, who previously offered just voice and data, must now incorporate video in order to remain competitive. Consequently, video-over-IP (Internet protocol) is set to spark significant changes in the access network.

A Guide to Broadband Chips delivers a comprehensive analysis of the major vendors offering products for this dynamic market. Vendors for passive optical networks include Broadlight, Centillium, Conexant, Iamba, Freescale, Cortina, PMC-Sierra, and Teknovus. Also covered are leading VDSL2 vendors Broadcom, Centillium, Conexant, Infineon, and Ikanos. We examine the VDSL2 and PON (BPON, EPON, GPON) silicon markets, applications, and vendors as we look at silicon for both ends of the wire: CO and CPE applications.

The report begins with an extensive overview of this growing market along with tutorials to help you get up to speed quickly. We explore the target markets and applications for VDSL2 and PON silicon, followed by descriptions of the common attributes of these products. We provide background on these technologies, with in-depth coverage of the chip vendors in each segment, including product details and roadmap information where available. We then compare the available solutions and pick our winners for each segment. Only The Linley Group's unique technology analysis can provide this forward-looking view.

Don't delay! Order A Guide to Broadband Chips order by December 14 to receive a special prepublication discount. For more information on this report, visit our web site.