Our survey goes beyond gauging the depth and breadth of use for multicore processors and NPUs by providing insights into which devices telecom equipment manufacturers are using, for what applications and how they rated each vendor. The report includes information from previous surveys in 2006 and 2010, providing valuable trend data. The report charts the use of specific general-purpose processors, communications processors, integrated multicore processors and NPUs. Respondents were also asked if they used field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for packet processing and what performance and features would be required for future multicore processors and NPUs.

Looking forward, our respondents said that packet processors should integrate security functions, traffic management, DPI and control plane processing. Our respondents also said that they needed higher performance packet processors and that performance was the most important criteria when selecting processors for networking applications. At the same time, our respondents said that the power budget for packet processing was very significant with most allowing more than 20W and one quarter allowing 120W or more. This opens the door for highly integrated multicore processors that can handle at least 40Gbit/s packet processing and associated control plane and management functions.