Xelerated Xpress

Demo video with EE Times

The 100G demo tour is now going into a final phase with additional customer meetings mainly in Europe, where vacation period is eventually over.

For all those who didn’t get to see the demo, I recommend watching the video demo we conducted with Brian Fuller of EE Times.

You can see the video here.

by Per Lembre on Sep. 7th, 2010

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Busy Times

Today marked a major milestone for Xelerated as we announced the availability of samples of the HX network processor. The chip is back from manufacturing, and it is running at full speed in the lab. Samples are also with customers at this point, and the whole company is going full steam ahead to support our customers in the design of next generation Carrier Ethernet switches and routers.

Over the next few months, we are planning a series of events to demonstrate the HX network processor’s wirespeed capabilities. Stay tuned for more news and information on 100 Gbit/s wirespeed network processing.

Update:  Some online links to the news coverage on this story -

• Light Reading: Xelerated Finally Gets 100G
• Embedded.com: NPUs – Xelerated samples 100 Gbit/s wirespeed network processor
• Broadband Properties Blog: 100 Gbps Wirespeed Network Processor From Xelerated
• SOC Central: Xelerated Samples 100-Gbps Wirespeed Network Processor
• Converge! Network Digest: Xelerated Samples 100 Gbps Network Processor

by Per Lembre on Jun. 30th, 2010

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When There Is a Special Purpose

Network processors are very flexible. They can be programmed for any type of data plane services. Every customer project is unique; all organizations want to compete with features and functionality as they continue to come up with new, innovative ways to make the most out of NPU silicon.

Still, there are limitations to what network processors can do. They are developed for a special-purpose; to process packets very efficiently. What they do, they do very well. But if you want to accomplish anything other than process packets, you will need another type of processor. General-purpose multicore processors would be the choice. But can’t they be used for packet processing as well?

For a deep-dive to this subject, I recommend reading Håkan Zeffer’s and my recent article in Electronic Design. We compare the differences between the special-purpose dataflow architecture, which is found in all Xelerated NPUs, and general-purpose multicore architectures that are popular in today’s server architectures. Both have their merits, and a comparison should be made for the target application. When looking to the architectures, you can start to calculate how efficient the different approaches are for different types of applications. I hope you find the conclusions interesting.

by Per Lembre on May. 28th, 2010

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The Bright Future of Telecoms At the World Expo

Everything at the World Expo in Shanghai is huge. Over the next six months, some 70 million people are expected to visit the show.  In preparation, the city has added 150 metro stations. (Yes, this is more than the complete metro system in Stockholm!) The show includes more pavilions than ever, and despite economic downtimes, countries are investing more than ever before in the World Expo. And there are good reasons. The pace of development in China is amazing, and every nation wants to understand and engage with the superpower.  China is shining.

At the Expo, the international pavilions compete for attention from the crowd. For example, the U.K. pavilion looks like a hedgehog. And the Danes made a brilliant move when they decided to transport the little Sea-Maid over to the Expo.  The Swedish pavilion has a bar on the top of its yellow painted roof.

Still, what attracts my attention the most are the Chinese pavilions. Yes, there are more than one. China Mobile and China Telecom have sponsored one pavilion in particular about the future of Telecoms, while one of the world’s largest ship manufacturers, CSSC, has another pavilion which looks like a complete power generation site.  And yet another pavilion is dedicated to Chinese Private Enterprises. Anyone in doubt of China’s commitment to entrepreneurship should pay a visit to this pavilion. Although we, who are already convinced, should go there anyway to enjoy the world-class piece of art that concludes the tour.

But of these Chinese pavilions, what catches my eye the most is the story told over at the Information and Communication Pavilion – about the bright future enabled by telecommunications.  At this pavilion, visitors are asked to make their wishes for the future by typing them onto a PSP-like device. We then enter the first of two circular cinemas, the first dedicated to the history of telecommunications, and the latter to the future. Glossy cartoon characters, JiLing and GuDu, guide us through the bright history of telecommunications, and to the even brighter future. All wishes which will one day become true. You can teleport yourself into the future, and back to history, have your favorite basketball player to teach you how to score, have the impressionist icon Vincent Van Gogh to teach you how to paint.

The conclusion isn’t hard to capture, despite technical translation issues. The future is bright. For Telecoms. And for China.

by Per Lembre on May. 6th, 2010

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Booming Carrier Ethernet Market

Projected spending in Carrier Ethernet equipment. Source: Infonetics Research.

Michael Howard’s latest research on the Carrier Ethernet market is yet another proof point that service providers continue to migrate their networks to Carrier Ethernet. According to the latest Infonetics Research report investments in Carrier Ethernet gear are expected to go from US$21.6 billion in 2009 to over US$32 billion in 2014.

As previously noted here at Xelerated Xpress, the market for Carrier Ethernet gear continues to outpace investments in other technologies. We may debate over the exact numbers – future projections always need to be considered with a pinch of salt – but the trend is unquestionable; service provider networks are turning Ethernet.

by Per Lembre on May. 6th, 2010

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Asia Is the Hotbed

Recent market data proves once again that the power shift toward Asia in broadband networking is real. Here is where we see the most interesting developments today.

According to Point Topic, Asia now accounts for nearly 40% of all broadband subscribers.  Not to mention, the region outperformed the sum of all other regions in terms of net subscriber additions last year. With China, Japan and South Korea leading the way, other Asian countries are growing fast, but from a smaller base. The Philippines grew 60% last year, and India 40%(!).

China passed the 100 million subscriber milestone in the fourth quarter last year, and the pace of growth is not slowing down. There is no doubt these numbers have a profound impact on how the industry is being shaped in support for the emerging fiber-based broadband market.

by Per Lembre on Mar. 25th, 2010

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The Need for More Service Density

New computer services tend to take advantage of the latest processing and storage resources.  A new hard drive may give you ten times the storage capacity, but you may still find it half full only one year after the initial purchase.  This is also when you find the PC’s dual core processor running at 2.1 GHz is under constant heavy load.  Is this a rule by nature? It quite possibly could be.

The Network Processor (NPU) industry is no different. A new generation comes with significant more processing power, and still our customers ask for more. There are more standards coming down the road, and there are more features requested by service providers around the world. Demand is always more, never less.

At the recent Linley tech seminar Xelerated’s Vice President of Business Development, Thomas Eklund, delivered a presentation – available for download on Slideshare – on the importance of service density in the NPU business. If your processing device can’t manage all the network services expected, then you will find your Research & Development department under hard stress to balance features and performance against available resources.  The need for greater service density is an important aspect for the whole service provider industry. If next generation routers and switching platforms can be built with greater headroom for new services, we can extend the lifetime of the equipment, and thereby strengthen the business case for the broadband services.

Service density can be a bit hard to measure, but doing some very basic calculations on the raw service processing capabilities of a particular chip is fairly straightforward and this will give you a rough idea on the capabilities of the chip. Failing to do this in an evaluation process for a new line card design often leads to unhappy surprises at a very late stage in the project. In turn this results in risk of missing an important market window, as well as signficantly increased engineering and product costs.  So take a look and find out – how much service density is your chip providing?

Update: this post was re-published at Advanced TCA Systems Web Site.

by Per Lembre on Mar. 10th, 2010

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Google Moves Into FTTx

The US needed an additional push to increase the pace of fiber deployments to the residential users. Google’s decision to enter the broadband market shakes the competitive landscape and increases the interest to go fiber all the way down to the end user.

Today’s hotbed for fiber-to-the-home/basement (FTTx) deployments is clearly Japan and China. Already half of the broadband users in Japan are connected on FTTx, with China catching up fast. Europe and North America are lagging behind. But for how long?

Learning from copper-based broadband evolution, the amount of competition is fundamental to the pace of deployment. US end users are probably the ones that should welcome today’s news, regardless if they are based in an area that will be covered by the future Google FTTx service.

by Per Lembre on Feb. 11th, 2010

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Gloomy Old OAM and Synchronization Turns Hot

When I started in this industry more than a decade ago, I couldn’t care less about OAM and synchronization. Sure, probably important, but I just let the SDH/Sonet guys worry about those things. The future was all about packets, higher bandwidth and great user experience.

Now, we packet guys have started to realize why OAM and synchronization are important areas. Lionel Florit, MEF technical committee member and technical lead at Cisco, captured this in today’s  sessions at the MPLS and Ethernet World Congress in Paris, when comparing a 15 year old Sonet chart on OAM with the IEEE 802.1ag standard chart for Carrier Ethernet. Indeed, very similar.

First conference day was really good. This Upperside event attracts all top system vendors and most speakers are experienced enough to bring some good meat to the discussion.  Stands are congested and the conference sessions well attended. Served with French food and wine, we get most of what is needed for a great industry event.

Interested in more snippets from the show? Please follow  http://twitter.com/perlembre

by Per Lembre on Feb. 11th, 2010

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Higher Synchronization Demands, Not Less

My colleague Tord Haulin gave me this brief summary of the synchronization demands as mobile backhaul networks goes packet. You can think of the demands as a three-step evolution:

1. Distribution of precise frequency

Requirement for e.g. WCDMA/UMTS transport equipment: 15 parts per billion (ppb)

This means: OK to deliver up to a dozen too many/too few clock cycles every day (for a 8kHz reference frequency).

2. Distribution of locked frequency with tight phase control

Requirement for e.g. Fixed WIMAX transport equipment 4.3 micro seconds

This means: The precise number of clock cycles has to be delivered every year. It is OK to lead or lag up to a dozen of degrees at any time (also for a 8kHz reference)

3. Distribution of time of day

Requirement for e.g. radio interface of CDMA/CDMA2000: 1 micro second.

This means: Time carrying signal cannot be sent more than 150 m without compensating for transport delay. That would be one city block(!) 

To measure time in distance of speed of light, and frequency wander in lost clock cycles, put the hard mobile infrastructure requirements on frequency, phase and time of day distribution into perspective. For those interested in more details, I recommend taking a look at Xelerated’s precision time solution white paper.

More on this topic will also be presented at the upcoming MPLS & Ethernet World Congress 2010 and Ethernet Wholesale Summit 2010 in Paris, February 9-12, 2010. Xelerated will be there as well as many of our industry peers.

Look forward to seeing you there!

by Per Lembre on Jan. 27th, 2010

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