networkZONE Products for the week of October 6, 2003
Motorola Says…
LAN/WAN Lockdown! -- Motorola's Low-Cost PowerQUICC
Processor Families Now Offer Integrated Security Engines
Answering today's market imperative for network security, Motorola,
Inchas introduced two new PowerQUICC families of communications processors
that include security acceleration. The new MPC885 PowerQUICC I and MPC8272
PowerQUICC II families with integrated security engines are designed to
drive down the cost and complexity of delivering virtual private network
(VPN) services through secure wired and wireless communications and networking
equipment.
The PowerQUICC secure communications processors leverage Motorola's extensive encryption technology and deep experience in secure communications. The security engines are based on proven cores used in Motorola's popular S1 family of security co-processors. Motorola integrated these cores with the PowerQUICC architecture to help equipment manufacturers reduce system-level costs and simplify board layout. On-chip security also provides an economical solution for accelerating cryptographic throughput and eliminating encryption bottlenecks in applications that support Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and other security protocols.
The MPC885 and MPC8272 families provide cost-effective, high-performance security and communications processing solutions for a wide range of applications, such as VPN routers, small office/home office (SOHO) and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) routers, residential gateways, integrated access devices (IADs), wireless access points, network attached storage equipment, and industrial control equipment. Many of these applications are not only cost-sensitive but also require a high degree of integration to support multiple modes of communications, such as Fast Ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), full/low-speed universal serial bus (USB), high-level data link control (HDLC), and a variety of security algorithms and protocols.
"Integrating security functions into communications processors leads to lower system cost and improves system efficiency, so it is natural for Motorola to introduce secure versions of its popular PowerQUICC communications processors," said Sanjay Iyer, a senior analyst at The Linley Group. "Motorola's secure PowerQUICC devices are more efficient than two-chip solutions in moving data through crypto cores, leading to higher system throughput. The integrated packet-processing capabilities of PowerQUICC processors suitably complement the embedded crypto functions while still addressing traditional communications functions. Motorola's secure PowerQUICC processors will help eliminate the market for low-cost standalone encryption chips."
"The increasing demand for network security is driving the widespread use of IPSec and other security protocols across the network, and Motorola is addressing this need by integrating robust security engines within the PowerQUICC communications processor architecture," said David Perkins, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's Networking and Computing Systems Group. "Software encryption doesn't deliver the kind of throughput our customers want. Our hardware-based encryption technology solves that problem, and since this technology is integrated into a single communications processor, we can provide security at a lower bill-of-materials cost."
MPC885 PowerQUICC I Processor Family
The MPC885 processor family is the next-generation extension of Motorola's
popular PowerQUICC I family, offering integrated security in a cost-effective
communications processor architecture. The family supports core frequencies
scaling from 66 MHz to 120 MHz and external bus speeds of up to 80MHz. Like
all PowerQUICC I processors, the MPC885 family devices integrate two processing
blocks: an embedded 8xx PowerPC core (with an 8KB instruction cache and
an 8KB data cache) and an on-chip Communications Processor Module (CPM).
The MPC885 family includes four devices:
The MPC885 and MPC880 devices are available in a 357-pin ball-grid array (BGA) package, and the MPC875 and MPC870 devices are available in a 256-pin BGA.
MPC8272 PowerQUICC II Processor Family
Designed to reduce system-level cost, power and board space, the MPC8272
processor family offers exceptional integration with features optimized
for cost-sensitive designs. MPC8272 devices incorporate the high-performance
embedded PowerPC 603e core available in speeds of 266MHz, 300MHz and 400MHz,
with bus speeds up to 100MHz. The 603e core includes a 16KB instruction
cache and a 16KB data cache, a floating point unit, and memory management
units. The devices also feature a 200MHz, 32-bit RISC-based CPM to handle
communications tasks.
The MPC8272 family includes four devices:
MPC8272 family devices are available in a 516-pin PBGA package and are manufactured in Motorola's 0.13-micron process technology, enabling 1.5V core voltage and 3.3V I/O.
About Motorola's Integrated Security Technology
Motorola's history in security technology spans more than 35 years involving
governmental, military and commercial applications. In recent years, Motorola's
security technology has been applied to wireless handsets, wireless infrastructure,
wired Internet networks and cable set-top boxes. Motorola brought its security
technology to the commercial semiconductor market in 2000 with the introduction
of its S1 security co-processor family. S1 family devices were designed
to work in tandem with PowerQUICC processors to accelerate encryption and
authentication performance in networking applications.
The MPC885 and MPC8272 PowerQUICC families feature security engines based on the security processor core of the MPC185, a member of Motorola's S1 co-coprocessor family. The integrated security engines offer the same direct-memory access (DMA) and parallel processing capabilities available in Motorola's security co-processors and are software compatible with the co-processors. They also are able to perform single-pass encryption and authentication as required by widely used security protocols such as, IPSec and 802.11i. Both PowerQUICC families support the DES, 3DES, MD-5, SHA-1, and AES encryption algorithms. The MPC8272 family also supports ARC-4 encryption, Public Key acceleration, and on-chip Random Number Generator (RNG) technology.
Comprehensive Ecosystem Support
The MPC885 and MPC8272 PowerQUICC families are supported by a comprehensive
ecosystem of development tools from third-party vendors working through
Motorola's Smart Networks Alliance Program. Metrowerks, a Motorola company,
also supports the MPC885 and MPC8272 families with a wide range of development
solutions, such as low-cost reference boards, channel-ready evaluation boards,
the PowerTAP PRO ICE board bring-up tool, and the CodeWarrior Development
Studio, PowerPC ISA Edition. In addition, the PowerQUICC ecosystem includes
optimized peripheral integrated circuits from Motorola, such as QUICCsupply
power management ICs and QUICCclock timing solutions.
analogZONE Says . . .
With the current mania for secure networking at an all-time high, Motorola's strategic timing could not have been better with the introduction of its new line of PowerQUICC comms processors that feature on-chip security hardware. The boys from Austin are equipping their entire line of processors (even the venerable PowerQUICC I family) with most of the functionality found in their NPC184 and 185 stand-alone security processors. They say they will match the performance of a dedicated security processor in many applications, and from what I can see, they are not kidding.
The Power QUICC I is aimed at lower-end markets, such as residential CPE and can provide dedicated security processing capacity up to 40 - 50 Mbit/s. With a dedicated security processing capacity of 2-300 Mbit/s, the Power QUICC II family should be able to support the demands of high-performance residential gateways, SoHo routers, and even some small-to-medium enterprise access applications.
The secure QUICC I family's new features include a DES/Triple DES, AES logic block, to support AES SHA MD5, and HMAC transactions. The on-chip engine handles all IPSEC authenticate/encrypt transactions in single pass. An additional Fast Ethernet controller block (2 x 10/100) with MII/RMII interfaces adds flexibility and lowers the BOM cost of many applications.
With pricing typically $9 - 19 range in 10-k volumes for the MPC885 QUICC I chips, you get a network processor for the price of a stand-alone security processor -- or is it the other way around? In any case, this latest version of the lowest-cost QUICCs should make a great foundation for an aggressively-priced secure home gateway.
Moving up the performance chain, the QUICC II family boasts a more hardware security processing blocks including DES/3DES, MD5/SHA-1, AES, PKEU, RNG, and RC-4, along with the more powerful processing and I/O capabilities that are its hallmark. The family's aggressive pricing of $19 - $32 (in 10-k lots) should make it a good choice for a wide range of applications, ranging from residential gateways to VPN and SOHO routers, as well as wireless access points. The secure comms processor should also find homes in other areas, such as VPN routers, Network Attached Storage, and Radio Node Controllers.
While I'm not quite sure I buy their assertion that all but a handful of high-end security processors to go the way of math co-processors and end up as embedded cores within SOCs, I do think that their secure QUICC families have gone a long way to lower the cost of secure networking to the point where it will become ubiquitous in the next few years.
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