01/22/2007
AnalogZONE:
"Cortina Systems Says…Bandwidth Barrier Broken With 40 Gbit/s Ethernet Mac Aggregator IC"
Leap in 10 GBE port density for switches and routers with four native 10G serial XFP ports and Interlaken
Cortina Systems has announced the market's highest density 10Gbps Ethernet MAC Aggregator IC, CS3477, which doubles the bandwidth over previous components to meet the new density requirements of leading communication system providers.
CS3477 integrates direct serial connectivity to XFP optical modules to eliminate power draw, cost and size from the separate serializer chips in use today. With both 10GE LAN and WAN PHY integration it addresses enterprise and metro needs. The four 10GE MACs include industry-leading Layer 5 classification capabilities to identify and protect critical traffic flows, and provides a complete 10GE solution for both wire speed blades optimized for performance as well as oversubscribed blades optimized for port density and cost. This level of performance is enabled by the use of Interlaken uplink ports, an open industry standard created by Cortina and Cisco for inter-component connectivity.
"Cortina partnered with leading networking companies to create CS3477 which delivers the highest density, lowest power aggregation for both wire speed and over subscribed systems," said Zino Chair, vice president of marketing at Cortina. "With its native XFP connectivity eliminating the need for surrounding components, the CS3477 enables a generation step in high density line cards."
With its advanced classification and IPv6, MPLS support, multiple queues per port and deep buffer options, advanced scheduler, CS3477 delivers intelligent oversubscription capabilities for packet priority control. It also incorporated subscriber functionality like per-VLAN policing, statistics, tagging, and classification to assist the delivery of metro Ethernet services. The Interlaken interface delivers up to 40Gbps uplink capacity for wire speed, 2:1 or 4:1 oversubscription ratio.
analogZONE Says . . .
The Cortina CS3477 quad-port, 10GbE aggregating MAC has the ability to deliver high port density and to squeeze the most capacity out of a single 10G connection, both of which capabilities should find a warm welcome in backbone and edge access equipment. There have been several nicely-featured 10GbE MACs introduced over the past year, and even a couple of multi-port chips but, to my knowledge, this is the first device to incorporate this level of classification, flow control. The device uses the so-called intelligent-oversubscription-technology mechanism developed for their earlier CS3242 Barcelona, a 24-port GbE MAC. This allows it to perform essential classification, QoS and traffic management at the MAC layer without the need for a separate chip or tapping the host processor's resources. (For a more detailed explanation of how the oversubscription mechanism works, see my August 2005 review of the Barcelona MAC.)
Each of the four 10GbE signal chains has its own separate 10G classifier/policer blocks to enable smart over-subscription with adjustable bandwidth policing and QoS on a per-customer (ie per-VLAN) basis (see Fig. 1). Its on-chip Tx and Rx buffers eliminate the need for external FCRAM used by the earlier Barcelona 1GbE MAC for most applications. Should the number of flows or buffer depth you want to support exceed the chip's memory capacity, you can use the expansion port to add up to 24 Mbyte worth of external QDR II SRAM.
The CS3477's four line-side 10GbE interfaces are designed to connect directly to XFP optical modules. When I asked my briefers about supporting the emerging SFP+ module standard, Cortina said they were tracking it closely with the intent of supporting it when it's finalized. While Cortina declined to comment I'd infer that, depending on how the standard emerges, they will ether support it with this chip or a slightly-tweaked variant.
As the release above says, the CS3477 system-side connection is an Interlaken interface, an unofficial standard for a SerDes-based interconnect protocol that uses an enhanced SPI 4.2-like control layer to manage one or more high-speed serial channels that has been developed and promoted by Cortina and Cisco as (see the commentary in connectivityZONE Spring of 2006 for details). While I have my reservations about so-called standards that do not pass through an official standards body, Interlaken's technology seems sound and both Cortina and Cisco seem to be holding to their word that they will openly and feely make the technology available to any interested party. Besides, it's tough to argue with Cisco if they decide to declare something a standard…
By eliminating several separate ICs normally used to perform MAC, classification, and flow control, Cortina's new quad 10G aggregating MAC should help designers meet the new port density requirements anticipated for enterprise and metro equipment. Likewise, its 3 W/port (max) power dissipation will help keep things cool in boxes where 16 ports on a line card will be normal and 32 ports will not be out of the question. As unique as the CS3477 is, it does have at least one competitor in the form of the Ample A2122 Red Hawk, a 2-port, 10G aggregating MAC (reviewed here September 2005). While the Red Hawk is an excellent chip that's enjoyed several significant design wins, it really is an L2 device without many of the higher-layer classification and SLA enforcement mechanisms that this quad-port MAC packs. That being said, Ample is a very capable competitor and I suspect it won't be long before they answer Cortina's challenge with their next smart multi-port 10G MAC.
The CS3477 four-port 10GbE Aggregator IC is currently sampling to multiple customers. Cortina declined to comment on price but you should be able to infer a lot from the fact that their earlier aggregating MAC (Barcelona) was initially selling for around $240 in 1000-piece lots.
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Cortina Systems has announced the market's highest density 10Gbps Ethernet MAC Aggregator IC, CS3477, which doubles the bandwidth over previous components to meet the new density requirements of leading communication system providers.
CS3477 integrates direct serial connectivity to XFP optical modules to eliminate power draw, cost and size from the separate serializer chips in use today. With both 10GE LAN and WAN PHY integration it addresses enterprise and metro needs. The four 10GE MACs include industry-leading Layer 5 classification capabilities to identify and protect critical traffic flows, and provides a complete 10GE solution for both wire speed blades optimized for performance as well as oversubscribed blades optimized for port density and cost. This level of performance is enabled by the use of Interlaken uplink ports, an open industry standard created by Cortina and Cisco for inter-component connectivity.
"Cortina partnered with leading networking companies to create CS3477 which delivers the highest density, lowest power aggregation for both wire speed and over subscribed systems," said Zino Chair, vice president of marketing at Cortina. "With its native XFP connectivity eliminating the need for surrounding components, the CS3477 enables a generation step in high density line cards."
With its advanced classification and IPv6, MPLS support, multiple queues per port and deep buffer options, advanced scheduler, CS3477 delivers intelligent oversubscription capabilities for packet priority control. It also incorporated subscriber functionality like per-VLAN policing, statistics, tagging, and classification to assist the delivery of metro Ethernet services. The Interlaken interface delivers up to 40Gbps uplink capacity for wire speed, 2:1 or 4:1 oversubscription ratio.
analogZONE Says . . .
The Cortina CS3477 quad-port, 10GbE aggregating MAC has the ability to deliver high port density and to squeeze the most capacity out of a single 10G connection, both of which capabilities should find a warm welcome in backbone and edge access equipment. There have been several nicely-featured 10GbE MACs introduced over the past year, and even a couple of multi-port chips but, to my knowledge, this is the first device to incorporate this level of classification, flow control. The device uses the so-called intelligent-oversubscription-technology mechanism developed for their earlier CS3242 Barcelona, a 24-port GbE MAC. This allows it to perform essential classification, QoS and traffic management at the MAC layer without the need for a separate chip or tapping the host processor's resources. (For a more detailed explanation of how the oversubscription mechanism works, see my August 2005 review of the Barcelona MAC.)
Each of the four 10GbE signal chains has its own separate 10G classifier/policer blocks to enable smart over-subscription with adjustable bandwidth policing and QoS on a per-customer (ie per-VLAN) basis (see Fig. 1). Its on-chip Tx and Rx buffers eliminate the need for external FCRAM used by the earlier Barcelona 1GbE MAC for most applications. Should the number of flows or buffer depth you want to support exceed the chip's memory capacity, you can use the expansion port to add up to 24 Mbyte worth of external QDR II SRAM.
The CS3477's four line-side 10GbE interfaces are designed to connect directly to XFP optical modules. When I asked my briefers about supporting the emerging SFP+ module standard, Cortina said they were tracking it closely with the intent of supporting it when it's finalized. While Cortina declined to comment I'd infer that, depending on how the standard emerges, they will ether support it with this chip or a slightly-tweaked variant.
As the release above says, the CS3477 system-side connection is an Interlaken interface, an unofficial standard for a SerDes-based interconnect protocol that uses an enhanced SPI 4.2-like control layer to manage one or more high-speed serial channels that has been developed and promoted by Cortina and Cisco as (see the commentary in connectivityZONE Spring of 2006 for details). While I have my reservations about so-called standards that do not pass through an official standards body, Interlaken's technology seems sound and both Cortina and Cisco seem to be holding to their word that they will openly and feely make the technology available to any interested party. Besides, it's tough to argue with Cisco if they decide to declare something a standard…
By eliminating several separate ICs normally used to perform MAC, classification, and flow control, Cortina's new quad 10G aggregating MAC should help designers meet the new port density requirements anticipated for enterprise and metro equipment. Likewise, its 3 W/port (max) power dissipation will help keep things cool in boxes where 16 ports on a line card will be normal and 32 ports will not be out of the question. As unique as the CS3477 is, it does have at least one competitor in the form of the Ample A2122 Red Hawk, a 2-port, 10G aggregating MAC (reviewed here September 2005). While the Red Hawk is an excellent chip that's enjoyed several significant design wins, it really is an L2 device without many of the higher-layer classification and SLA enforcement mechanisms that this quad-port MAC packs. That being said, Ample is a very capable competitor and I suspect it won't be long before they answer Cortina's challenge with their next smart multi-port 10G MAC.
The CS3477 four-port 10GbE Aggregator IC is currently sampling to multiple customers. Cortina declined to comment on price but you should be able to infer a lot from the fact that their earlier aggregating MAC (Barcelona) was initially selling for around $240 in 1000-piece lots.
Product Archives
Return to the networkZONE
Lee's Saltshaker Rating