19 December 2008

Vitesse Debuts ARM9-Based Switch Chipset

Vitesse Semiconductor has announced its ARM9-based ‘Switch-on-a-Chip’, dubbed the 24-port SparX-II-24 and 16-port SparX-II-16.

The high integration and performance realized with the SparX-II 16/24 comes from a combination of an integrated ARM9 core processor and hardware acceleration that provides for a simpler, smaller board design with fewer components, thus reducing the total bill of materials for a fully managed L2 Gigabit Ethernet switch, Vitesse explained.

The SparX-II solution boasts Metro Ethernet Forum-specified (MEF) Carrier Ethernet and advanced telecom features offering advantages in these types of systems versus competitive Ethernet switch offerings, according to the company. The fast protection switching enables the device to achieve redundancy switching times significantly below the 50ms SONET telecom specification. In addition, the devices incorporate OAM functions such as IEEE802.1ag (Connectivity Fault Management) for use in Layer-2 (L2) managed and backplane solutions as well as in Synchronous Ethernet with SSM according to ITU-G.8264/Y.1362.

SparX-II-24 is targeted at cost-effective, Web-managed or managed standalone switches. The QoS and security features make SparX-II-24 ideal for VoIP, IPTV, WLAN and triple-play enabled switches. Additionally, non-blocking, switching performance makes SparX-II-24 a perfect choice for use in embedded switch backplane applications, such as modular computer servers and DSLAMs.

The advanced security and traffic prioritizing features of the SparX-II devices are delivered through the addition of Vitesse's Content Aware Processor (VCAP) for wire-speed, deep packet inspection used in security and other heavy packet inspection applications. Vitesse's VCAP processor is a TCAM-based processor capable of inbound and outbound wire-speed packet inspection that includes the ability to do frame filtering, rate limitation, snooping, redirect, mirroring, and accounting functions. The VCAP embeds powerful protocol awareness for well-known protocols, such as ARP, IPv4, IPv6, and UDP/TCP.

The SparX-II 16/24, known as the VSC7401 and the VSC7405 respectively, are available now.