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Please contact:
Jeffrey Geddes
Account Manager, Heavy Reading Insider Services
303-997-9135
or via email at:
geddes@
lightreading.com |
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| TEMs Rate Multicore & Network Processor Suppliers |
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Network bandwidth is growing rapidly, driven by smartphones, video on demand, and cloud-based applications. Users are also demanding greater security, high availability, and more service options. To meet these requirements, service providers need networking systems with much greater packet processing capabilities that can handle up to 100-Gbit/s bandwidth.
Multicore processors and NPUs are used in most high-performance networking systems, handling packet processing from less than 1 Gbit/s up to 40 Gbit/s. Telecom equipment manufacturers are developing systems with NPUs that can handle up to 100 Gbit/s. For lower-speed systems, equipment makers can choose from a range of different solutions, including dual/quad-core general-purpose processors, communications processors, multicore processors, and NPUs.
High-performance packet processing, control plane processing, and system management are required for many networking systems. Multicore processors, NPUs, communications processors, and general-purpose processors are all used in these systems. The boundaries between these different types of packet processor are being blurred. Multicore processors have hardware acceleration for many packet processing functions; some NPUs have general-purpose CPU cores; some communications processors have more than one CPU core; and general-purpose processors already have four cores, with six- and eight-core devices already in the pipeline.
A key challenge for telecom equipment providers is developing software. Network processor vendors protect developers from the multicore complexity of their devices by providing comprehensive libraries and application-specific software. Developers must efficiently spread the work across the cores to achieve maximum performance with multicore processors. There are many techniques available, including symmetric multiprocessing, asymmetric multiprocessing, and virtualization. New solutions are making these techniques more readily available to developers, which is likely to dramatically increase the use of multicore processors for high-speed packet processing applications.
TEMs Rate Multicore & Network Processor Suppliers analyzes the current and projected use of multicore processors and NPUs by telecom equipment manufacturers, based on the results of an exclusive worldwide survey of engineers, designers, product managers, and sales/marketing personnel that work for telecom and networking system equipment manufacturers and suppliers. The responses to our survey make it clear that these devices are critical components in many types of networking equipment, from the access edge to the core of the network.
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| Sample research data from the report is shown in the excerpts below: |
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 Table of Contents (cci0410toc.pdf) |
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| Networking bandwidth continues to grow, and equipment providers will require higher-performance packet processors over the next 12 to 24 months. As shown in the excerpt, fewer companies will require lower-speed packet processors and even 10-Gbit/s packet processors, but more than 50 percent will require packet processors with performance of 40 Gbit/s or more. |
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| [click on the image above for the full excerpt] |
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 Companies mentioned in this report include: Bay Microsystems Inc.; Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM); Cavium Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: CAVM); Enea AB (Stockholm: ENEA.ST); EZChip Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary of EZChip Semiconductor Ltd. (Nasdaq: EZCH); Freescale Semiconductor Inc.; Ikanos Communications, Inc.
(Nasdaq: IKAN); Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC); LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI); Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRVL); Mindspeed Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: MSPD); NetLogic Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: NETL); Netronome Systems, Inc.; PMC-Sierra Inc. (Nasdaq: PMCS); Tilera Corp.; Tpack A/S; TranSwitch Corp. (Nasdaq: TXCC); Wind River Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC); Wintegra Inc.; and Xelerated Inc. |
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| Total pages: 16 |
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| To view reports you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader. If you do not have it, it can be obtained for free at the Adobe web site. |
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