SAN JOSE -- Intel Corp. today gave a peek at its second-generation IXP network processor, planned for next year at a 1-GHz frequency handling 10-gigabit/second transmission rates.
Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of the Communications Group, told EBN at the Intel Developers Forum that the new IXP processor will use the next-generation Xscale
ARM-based core that is also being introduced in 2002.
The new IXP processor will use an unspecified "large number of
additional micro-engines around the core --- quite a bit more than the current 6 micro-engines in the current IXP 1200 processor," said Matt Campbell, network processing division product marketing manager.
There will be two versions of the next IPX processor -- a 0.13-micron chip capable of scaling ultimately to 1.4-GHz or higher for the 10-gigabit/second OC-192 networks, and a 0.18-micron chip scaling up to 600-MHz for 2.5-Gbit/sec OC-48 networks.
The current IXP 1200 uses the StrongARM core built on
quarter-micron processing with a top frequency of 232MHz.
The new Xscale core used in the second-generation IXP is the same that will be used in processors for the handheld client and wireless device market. Earlier IDF sessions said the core is uniquely designed by Intel as a derivative of the next-generation ARM-10 reference core with a derivative of the upcoming V.6 ARM instruction set recently licensed by Intel.
Campbell said both IXP versions will be able to handle the most
challenging packet ingress processing throughput at 10-Gbit/second -- which would be 750 instructions and 50 memory operations for each packet in 35 microseconds.
He said in this very short time the new processors must do packet classification, header indicators, metering, congestion control, traffic management, among other functions.
In his IDF keynote address, Maloney said 10-Gigabit Ethernet will expand in the market rapidly in the next year, first in the metro telecom centers and later migrating into corporate data centers.
He also projected a rapid rise of iSCSI over Fiber Channel in the next few years. "Fibrer Channel will remain as a legacy technology, but by 2003 iSCSI would become dominant in the market," he said.
Maloney also forecast that 10-Gbit Ethernet would start to be used for connecting storage units in a network for distributed processing. He said most storage systems are now used only as self-contained units connected to processor system.
"But each storage unit in the network may be idle at any one time," he said. By linking all the storage units together through 10G Ethernet, the network can call on many storage systems in processing a complex program, he added.
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