networkZONE Products for the week of October 16, 2006

Cavium Networks Says…
Cavium Networks Introduces New OCTEON Plus Multi-core MIPS64 Processors with World's Highest Networking, Wireless and Security Performance
4-core to 16-core, Gigahertz OCTEON Plus CN58XX Processors Double Performance and Extend Cavium's Lead in Performance per Watt

Cavium Networks, has announced the newest members of the OCTEON Multi-core MIPS64 Processor family. The 1 Gigahertz OCTEON Plus family doubles the performance of the market leading OCTEON CN38XX through higher frequency and architectural enhancements, and adds key new features, while maintaining full software and pin compatibility. OCTEON Plus processors also include innovative power management techniques that deliver up to 2X higher performance in the same power budget to set new performance per watt records. OCTEON processors have been widely adopted by Tier-1 OEMs for networking, security, control plane, wireless, storage and broadband gateway applications based on superior performance, lower power consumption, and broadest scalability.

OCTEON Plus CN58XX Processor Family
The OCTEON Plus CN58XX Processor family consists of 12 different software-compatible parts with 4 to 16 cnMIPS Plus cores providing up to 16GHz of 64bit compute processing and 2MB of on-chip L2 Cache. Additionally OCTEON Plus incorporates the most advanced multi-layer application acceleration for networking control, data and services applications. The OCTEON Plus CN58XX Processor family integrates popular networking and memory I/Os including up to 8x Gigabit ports, up to 2x SPI-4.2, PCI-X, 72/144 bit DDR2 controller, and 2x 18bit RLDRAM II controllers. It also includes extensive on-chip hardware acceleration for packet processing, QoS, TCP, compression, encryption, Robust Header Compression, KASUMI, and pattern matching to deliver higher performance with much lower power consumption over alternative solutions.

High Performance, Unified Control, Data and Services for Networking and Wireless
Enterprises and Service Providers are deploying an array of applications using data, voice and video over wired and wireless networks. These business applications and personalized content need to be delivered to users anytime, anywhere, on any platform with QoS, security and intelligence. These new applications drive the need for processing and integration requirements for embedded networking processors to be orders of magnitude higher. Furthermore the deployment of newer industry-standard form factors for telecom equipment such as ATCA, AMC and micro-TCA mandates hitting up to full-duplex 10 Gigabit performance within tight power envelopes and size limitations.

"The next generation of converged wired and wireless infrastructure equipment requires high compute performance along with features such as Robust Header Compression (ROHC), KASUMI security and subscriber management services within strict power budgets," said Ian Eigenbrod, Senior Research Analyst at IDC. "Processor vendors that deliver leading performance and performance/watt characteristics, general purpose software programmability and targeted application acceleration are well positioned to capture major designs for next generation networking and wireless equipment."

OCTEON: De-facto Choice for Scalable Networking, Wireless and Security Applications
OCTEON processors, first announced at Fall Processor Forum 2004, went to volume production within a record timeline and have become the de-facto industry choice for demanding L2-L7 networking services, wireless and security applications across majority of Tier-1 OEMs due to their leading performance, low power, scalability and most advanced application acceleration. The single core to 16 core processors have been integrated into over 100 designs that include Routers, L3+ Switches, UTM, Storage, 3G & WLAN Wireless, WiMAX, Broadband Gateways, and VOIP. Customer end products based on the OCTEON family have started rolling out to customers in 2H 2006.

"Integrated multi-core processors with on-chip application acceleration have established themselves as the most efficient method of powering next-generation networking platforms," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at The Linley Group. "In the past 5 years, Cavium has delivered more multi-core products to production, including the NITROX security and OCTEON multi-core MIPS64 processor families, than any other networking silicon supplier. With OCTEON Plus, Cavium raises the bar by offering the world's fastest general-purpose processor for packet processing and security applications."

"Cavium has doubled the performance of the Multi-Core OCTEON family in less than two years," said Syed Ali, President and CEO of Cavium Networks. "Today, Cavium has the broadest line of embedded multi-core processors in the industry that address a growing range of applications. Through our broad product line, continued strong execution, and an aggressive roadmap, we are committed to providing scalable, high-performance and highly integrated solutions that networking OEM customers can rely on for the long term."

Standard Operating System and C Software
OCTEON processors support standard operating systems including Linux , MontaVista Linux and Wind River for both VxWorks and Linux along with a thin executive for fast-path data-plane software. Cavium Networks provides a complete Software Development Kit with Linux, GNU tool-chain, GDB development environment and popular third party tool-chain and development support that enables thousands of MIPS32, MIPS64 and other C/C++ applications to be easily ported to OCTEON. Additionally, Cavium Networks provides APIs, L2 to L4 reference software, WLAN drivers and software toolkits for IPsec, SSL, SSL-VPN and TCP stacks, to enable quick time to market.

Broad Development, Ecosystem and Reference Design Support
OCTEON Plus is supported by over 30 different independent software vendors (ISVs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs) providing ready off-the-shelf products for OS/Tools, software stacks, hardware systems, and complimentary silicon. OCTEON and OCTEON Plus designs are available in standard ATX 1U, 2U, 3U configurations, ATCA card and AMC form factors. Cavium Networks ecosystem partners also provide pre-integrated software support for IPv6 ready networking stacks, management plane, UTM applications, VOIP and Java Virtual Machine.

analogZONE Says . . .

Since Cavium's almost always delivered on their claims, I was pleased to hear about their latest Octeon Plus multi-processor family which brings both more speed and features to address higher-capacity requirements that arise as multimedia becomes a larger part of network traffic. The new family expands on Cavium's solid architecture and arsenal of C-based tools with enough additional processing power and the ability to support both control plane and data plane tasks on multi-Gigabit data streams.

As with previous products, the Octeon Plus's multi-core architecture is based on the customized MIPS instruction set and an efficient dual issue 5-stage pipeline used in the original Octeon chip I reviewed back in 2004. Octeon's multi-processor array is complimented by a dedicated packet input processor, a hardware task and process synchronizer/scheduler, and a TCP/IP accelerator (see Fig. 1).

The new processor family is fabricated in a 90-nm process which gives them a much higher clock speed (600 MHz - 1 GHz) and frees up enough silicon real estate to add a lot more accelerator cores. Cavium used some of this area to beef up Octeon's TCP acceleration capabilities so that the biggest, baddest 16-core device can now support up to 20 Gbit/s worth of full-duplex traffic. To accommodate the extra throughput, they've beefed up the processor's compress/decompress engine so that it can now run most popular compression algorithms at 10 Gbit/s rates and a speed-bit feature which enables on-the-fly trade-off between compression depth and throughput. Cavium's also doubled the number of output queues the packet output processor's 16 ports can support for each from eight to 16.

Octeon's security capabilities have also benefited from the 90-nm shrink with some of the extra silicon area being used to double the number of engines in its integral RegEx pattern matching core. With 32 engines at its command, you can enjoy deep pattern analysis at speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s. While it may not quite match the performance and capabilities of dedicated RegEx engines like Tarari (reviewed here February 2006) or NetLogic (reviewed here March 2006), Octeon's combination of RegEx and general-purpose packet processing power make it attractive for lots of applications which deliver multiple services in the same box. It's no wonder then that several ODMs are already using the earlier generation Octeon in a UTM reference design.

Designers involved with 3G/4G wireless will appreciate the addition of a KASUMI F8/F9 accelerator in each processor's integrated crypto engine. Cavium's strategy to keep most security operations running locally within means each core can support 2 Gbit/s worth of KASUMI traffic without clogging up the chip's inter-processor bus with unnecessary data movements.

In the end, these improvements mean that a similarly-equipped Octeon Plus will do roughly double the work of an equivalent 130-nm device -- even though they draw roughly the same power (depending on the speed and number of cores, they draw between 15 W and 40 W). Since the new chips are pin-compatible, a sharp designer should be able to either double an existing design's capacity with a few tweaks to the PCB, or cut back on the number of cores and support the same throughput with a less expensive, less power-hungry device.

And if you're designing new equipment, Octeon's ability to deliver more throughput on the same power will help you enjoy higher channel densities in your products. For example, even with the 40 W required for a 16-core chip which supports full-duplex 10GbE on both system and line interfaces, you can pack up to 3 full-blown Octeons to reside on a 200 W ATCA card with 80 W left over for switch fabric and other devices. A single-core 600-MHz Octeon draws around 16 W. Between the processing power it delivers and the mature set of development tools behind it, the new generation of Octeon multi-service processors should make a home for itself wherever high-throughput, high-touch capabilities are needed. I'd expect find them popping up in everything from router/switches, load balancers/L4 switches, and VPN/firewall/UTM equipment to 3G/4G wireless infrastructure and even some of the intelligent SAN/NAS boxes that are beginning to show up on the market.

Pricing for the OCTEON CN58XX family ranges from $255, 4-core 600 MHz SCP version, to $987, 16-core 1GHz SCP version, in 10-k piece lots. Processors and evaluation boards will be available in Q1 2007.

Data Sheet

Lee's Saltshaker Rating

analogZONE
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