Xelerated Xpress

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 Need for Speed

The market for 10G and faster network ports is at a tremendous growth pace right now. According to the latest Infonetics Report, the uptake in 10G, 40G and 100G is expected to tenfold by 2014.

And interestingly enough it is not a tenfold from very low levels, which tends to be the case when we see booming markets numbers being touted. No, the 10G and above market in the enterprise and service provider segments was already in 2009 north of $10 billion ($11.1 to be exact according to the report).

So what drives this insatiable demand for bandwidth?

For the Service Provider segment it is clear that the growth stems from the build-outs of new Fiber Access networks. They are architected for service delivery over Ethernet, and generate traffic in high volumes that is aggregated by switches and routers. In turn, they need interface speeds that are several magnitudes higher than the access side of the network. Already in this early phase of the market, the interest for Gigabit access is real, and growing through for instance the Googles initiative “Fiber for Communities”. Also new products are arriving to meet the new demands. The recently announced high-density gigabit access switch developed jointly by Accton and Xelerated, is perfectly aimed to this market.

The 10G growth is not limited to the service provider segment. Also enterprises are inevitably migrating to 10G interface connectivity. End-users consume more bandwidth, and require that data centers scale in parity with that growth.

Some philosopher said “the best way to predict the future is to create it”.  At Xelerated we make the fastest and most flexible chips for this new market. We are part of the creation. But does this mean we know where future networking will be in 20 years? Sure – let me just take out my crystal ball from the drawer…

by Anders Wirkestrand on May. 12th, 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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The Implications of Mobile Data Surpassing Voice

A very interesting milestone was recently reached.  As Ericsson reports, mobile data surpassed voice on a global basis in December 2009, Ericsson. This finding is based on Ericsson’s measurements on live networks covering all regions of the world.

So what implications will this have on 3G and 4G?  The most obvious is the demand for more bandwidth in the radio access network. It will have to be optimized for carrying data traffic. Voice services must be preserved, but data will dominate. And keep in mind that we are just in the early stages of the mobile data explosion.

Carriers have been trying to patch their networks in different ways to support more aggressive mobile data traffic volumes for some years now. Ethernet and circuit emulation in different variants have been introduced. Ethernet is a more high performance transport technology compared to ATM (AAL2 for voice and AAL5 for data). But carriers need rigorous synchronization schemes over Ethernet to make it work.  And there are other challenges like where to terminate legacy services and where to introduce the Ethernet ports? How can the new transport network comply to existing service provisioning schemes?

If the trends observed by Ericsson are correct, we are heading toward a data optimized radio access infrastructure faster than anyone expected. The Ethernet-based transport in the radio access network is needed to cope with the mobile data explosion. There are different attempts to solve this. We can learn from China Mobile’s PTN requirements which utilizes an Ethernet-based transport with synchronization support based on point-to-point (PTP) Ethernet. These networks are designed for data growth, but continue to support voice. And these requirements are here and now. They are designed for 2G, 3G and beyond.

by Thomas Eklund on Apr. 8th, 2010

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Multi-core Disappointment – Here We Go Again

It is time this industry learns from historic mistakes. If not, we may spend huge amounts in engineering efforts only to discover the path taken is a dead end.  I read a recent article by Simon Stanley of Light Reading, and in it his research indicates that multi-core processors are being evaluated from applications in the network processing field. I don’t see this trend when talking to the major network equipment vendors, and this might be  because they also remember what multi-core processors couldn’t deliver ten years ago.

Those who are seriously evaluating multi-core architectures for packet processing should be prepared for some surprises. Again. The same evolution happened several times before with separate processors brought together in a multi-processor architecture on the same die to scale processing performance.  Have people already forgot about why previous multi-core proposals for packet processing did not fly?

First, multi-core architectures consume a lot of power. Second, they are not designed for deterministic wirespeed performance. Third, they are difficult to program efficiently – making it hard to meet the performance requirements in modern packet processing applications.  And using ANSI-C does not help the inefficiency and performance challenges.

Multi-core processors are designed for general purposes, and they are therefore not optimized for packet processing.  They lack the necessary service density. Xelerated’s Dataflow Architecture, in contrast, was designed to solve the challenge of combining programmability and super-efficient packet processing. It is a linearly scalable wirespeed-by-design processing architecture with low power and a great amount of service density.

Support for 40 or 100 G interfaces does not say anything about the device’s ability to perform a meaningful application at these speeds. And when looking into the requirements in advanced Carrier Ethernet, Fiber Access or Mobile Backhaul applications, general-purpose multi-core designs continue to fall short. To give you an idea: Xelerated’s new HX330 has over 900 percent greater service density compared to the most high-end multi-core processor on the market. That is, it has 9 times the processing capacity for network and packet processing!

It is time to learn from history. Multi-core architectures have a bright future in general applications, for the server and consumer markets. Here is where they belong – processing applications, not processing packets.

There is a reason why 20+ NPU vendors that spent multi-million dollars in multi-core architectures failed to deliver a commercial and technically viable option to the networking industry. This history is just ten years away. I’m confident network equipment vendors have a longer memory than this.

by Thomas Eklund on Apr. 7th, 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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The Healthy Signs of Telecoms Going Mainstream

Another day here at Mobile World Congress, and I have noticed a strong shift in telecommunications  - the hype really is gone in the industry! We are going the same route as power generation and power supply did at the end of the ’90s, and now nobody in the general public knows what is going on in that industry.  That very same thing is now happening to telecoms.  While there is still a lot of good business to be made, there is less hype…  meaning less high-risk business endeavors, but more thought-through and sound business projects will prosper.  It is a healthy sign.

This year, the energy and activity level at Mobile World Congress has been far better compared to the two previous years’ events. A lot of ideas about sharing networks were shown both by service providers and vendors.  Huawei showcased the largest and widest portfolio and made a big impact with their lifetime cost approach. And NEC’s focus on cloud computing was impressive, expanding its concept to all types of customers/users and putting the operators in the central role.

Another thing that struck me about this year’s show is that there are not many Asian people in attendance. In particular, I did not find many of my Chinese industry colleagues.  This week was the Chinese New Year with the spring festival, which is comparable to having an event during the United States’ Thanks giving holiday.  Even still, there were several Asian companies participating and showing their goods, however few visitors from the region.

While previous Mobile World Congress events have been clogged with small startups trying to attract larger companies for M&A activities, this time it was far more companies aiming at building and growing on their own. Another very healthy sign.

by Anders Ericsson on Feb. 18th, 2010

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Closed or Open? Hot From the Floor at MWC

Mobile World Congress is a big, yet strange place. You have to pay to get access to different providers. But the really important players, you can’t access at all. A sign tells you ‘entry by invitation only’. I wonder how long that business approach will prevail?

Apple and Google are still perceived as the villains in the mobile market and both system vendors and operators seem more interested to fight them than to change with the new conditions. The real infrastructure challenge for the long and medium term – mobile backhaul – doesn’t trigger much interest here. There is a lot of buzz around cloud computing and SLAs, but the necessary connection to mobile backhaul is lacking.

After a quick walk around all booths, I found that the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) countries bring a fresh new perspective on telecommunications. They will soon have better infrastructure in populated areas compared to any country in the western world. Here is where the foundation for new ideas is being built, and here is where I expect a next wave of companies will emerge to take the lead in telecommunications.

And do I need to tell you that the doors to these companies are wide open for access?

by Anders Ericsson on Feb. 16th, 2010

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