Xelerated Xpress

100G Network Processors Start Ramping in November

Xelerated Xpress met with Anders Ericsson, VP of Sales and Marketing at Xelerated, for a chat on the state of the 100G NPU market. He explains how the technology pushes the communications industry to better optimized solutions.

Xpress: How does the 100G NPU technology contribute to the networking industry?

AE: This new generation NPUs is changing some fundamental economics for the design of Carrier Ethernet systems and how system vendors compete. First, we have the bandwidth factor. The next wave of Carrier Ethernet line cards and systems will deliver higher capacities and packet rates within the same power budget. Second, we get more processing and features. The integrated advanced traffic manager allows system vendors to build more capable systems with higher quality and more advanced services at radically reduced dollar per gigabit. Third, the shift in favor to merchant NPU enable system vendors to compete more with software and feature velocity rather than having to depend on internal ASIC projects.

Xpress: How can Xelerated compete with in-house packet processing silicon?

AE: We are gaining experience from so many more customers, markets, sources and stake holders than an internal development group can get. Our solutions are catered for a broader task and can be used in so many more systems and applications. In comparison, Xelerated network processors are more flexible and have a higher integration factor. They include advanced traffic management and buffering, many hardware engines and huge banks of embedded memories. As our technology applies to a broad set of applications, we pay attention to R&D economics such as time to market, and re-usability of investments in software.

Xpress: What attracts system vendors to use silicon from Xelerated?

AE: We provide three fundamental benefits that no other supplier can provide today.

1. Determinism through the wirespeed architecture
2. Highly efficient programmability, and
3. Low power consumption

It is the combination of the three that makes the big difference.

Xpress: Why is low power consumption becoming critical?

AE: Power consumption is a key design parameter in all systems today, across application types.  This is driven by direct energy costs, less complex and faster installation, minimized need for forced ventilation, and compliance to state regulations for environmental protection. And on top of that you gain a more cost-effective design.

Xpress: In what type of platforms do you see the largest adoption for HX and AX chips?

AE: OTN, Transport systems, PTN, Mobile Backhaul, Carrier-Ethernet Switch Routers and PON OLTs

Xpress: Does the technology enable fundamentally new designs, or are we mainly seeing more of the same; more ports, more packets and more bandwidth?

AE: We see both new designs and more of the same. With our state of the art integrated traffic manager we enable new systems with more efficient designs. But there is of course an ongoing cry for more bandwidth and throughput. One has to bear in mind though, that not all components are in the same maturity stage. For instance, there are a lot of optical components that are too expensive to support a cost-effective roll-out of 100G solutions before 2014.

Xpress: Are there any sweet spot designs?

AE: Yes, OTN and PTN. The HX and AX product attributes fit well in these high-volume optimized designs.

Xpress: The dataflow architecture has evolved in HX and AX. How?

AE: Our core technology continuously evolves. The HX and AX with the 100G dataflow architecture is now in production. It includes enhanced service densities; higher lookup rates and more processor cores compared to the 40G generation. In addition, we have enhanced the flexibility by allowing intelligent oversubscription through advanced pre-classification.

Moving forward the dataflow architecture is already staged for 200G and 400G. We are assessing parallel pipes, and enhanced flexibility for ingress and egress processing while retaining the deterministic characteristics.

Xpress: Xelerated is making a strong push for wirespeed processing. Is this inherent to the HX and AX chips?

AE: Wirespeed is by design and inherent to all our products.

Xpress: Doesn’t wirespeed come with a flexibility tax?

AE: Not really, our software and application utilization is not dependent on traffic load. It is always deterministic to the speed and throughput that the devices are specified for.

Xpress: How are customers responding to the new integrated traffic manager? Are customers using this feature?

AE: The market response has been overwhelming, really. It is mainly used for per-user and per-service shaping in both line card and pizza box designs. This was really the primary application we had in mind. But, we also see additional interest for building chassis-based solutions solely on the integrated TM.

Xpress: When do you expect the first platforms in volume based on HX and AX chips?

AE: HX-based products are expected to ramp in November, while AX will ramp in December.

Xpress: 100G network processing is here and now. So what’s next?

AE: The industry is screaming for more bandwidth and more advanced packet services on Carrier Ethernet systems. We have a number of interesting innovations in-design, but it is a bit early still to unveil any secrets.

by Per Lembre on Sep. 8th, 2011

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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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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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How Much Bandwidth Do We Need?

How much bandwidth we really need is one of the critical questions service providers and policy makers around the world ask themselves as they stimulate and start to invest in Next Generation Access infrastructure. About a decade ago, migrating from dial-up to DSL and cable opened up for the Web and P2P applications. Moving next to fiber will lead to a far more reliable and dynamic digital society, with a range of consumer video applications driving the need for speed.

It’s always hard to imagine the uptake and requirements for future services. By its very nature, the future is unpredictable. Will HDTV take off? Will consumers ever want to narrate their own interactive movies in high definition? Or will they rather just lay back in the sofa and watch IPTV on the big-screen TV? The answers to these questions will have strong traffic planning implications.

Let’s look at what others are predicting. The FTTH council has compiled a list of broadband forecasts  in a response to an inquiry about the U.S. National Broadband Plan:

• Heavy Reading concludes that households will need 100 Mbps downstream (actual delivered throughput) by 2015.
• Bain & Co’s estimates the average U.S. household will require 30+ Mbps of download bandwidth, but points out that this requirement will move up to 100 Mbps over time.
• Motorola mirrors Bain & Co estimates. Within seven years, service providers need to plan for this figure to top 100 Mbps of actual throughput.

It looks like the industry will broadly accept the 100 Mbps target. How to measure the success, however, is likely to differ. Additionally, when looking at historic growth in broadband bandwidth, 100 Mbps is a reasonable goal for the next 5-10 years. The Swedish Government is aiming for this in its national broadband plan. The objective is to have 40% of Swedish housholds and companies connected at 100 Mbps by 2015, and 90% in 2020. Aggressive? Yes. Probable? Why not?

by Per Lembre on Dec. 23rd, 2009

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ADSL Is Losing to Fiber

I read a very interesting article in Computer Sweden which presents the latest broadband statistics for the Swedish market. Fiber-based broadband access is growing,  and copper-based ADSL is losing market share.  Fiber is not only growing faster, but now, for the first time, the number of ADSL subscriptions are actually declining. Also, more people are using IP telephony than POTS – however both are losing to cellular phone services.

Yet another statistical proof point that copper-based services are on a downhill slope. The pace of change to fiber seems to be faster than many of us have expected.

by Thomas Eklund on Nov. 27th, 2009

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