Despite the presence of heavy hitters like Motorola, IBM and Intel, several startups are still looking to enter the network processor (NPU) market. The latest to publicly join the fray is Xstream Logic Inc. (Los Gatos, Calif.), which confirmed it is developing an NPU but disclosed no details.
At least 10 companies have announced NPUs, and I know of several others that have yet to announce. The NPU market is looking like the 3-D-accelerator market of a few years ago, when as many as 40 companies were developing or marketing 3-D chips.
You probably know what happened there. Today, there are only a handful of companies making 3-D chips. Most of the others went out of business or were purchased (or both).
Most 3-D accelerators today are sold by companies such as Intel and Via Technologies Inc. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) that also sell PC chip sets. Though NPUs will not be as quickly integrated into other components, the winners will be able to deliver a full solution to their customers, including NPUs, CPUs, switch fabrics, search engines, MACs and PHY chips.
Networking silicon vendors see this trend, and they realize programmable devices will be key to future network devices. That's why PMC-Sierra Inc. (Burnaby, B.C.) announced plans to buy Quantum Effect Devices (Santa Clara, Calif.), which makes MIPS CPUs used in networking.
These deals will continue as chip vendors try to complete their product portfolios. Intel and Lucent Technologies Inc. (Murray Hill, N.J.) may look for switch fabrics to complement their NPUs. PMC may pick up an NPU maker at some point, though it denies it is shopping for one now. Other big players will buy companies just to get a more efficient search engine or a faster NPU.
Companies ripe for acquisition include NPU makers EZchip Technologies Ltd. (Israel), SiByte Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), and Xstream; search-engine providers such as Lara Networks Inc. (San Jose), SiberCore Technologies (Kanata, Ont.), and Mosaid Technologies Inc. (Kanata); and switch-fabric maker PowerX Ltd. (Manchester, England). Several startups that have yet to announce their products are also hoping to be acquired at a high price.
A shakeout is inevitable. When the dust settles in the NPU market, only a handful of companies will be left.
Linley Gwennap is the Founder and Principal Analyst of the Linley Group (www.linleygroup.com), a Technology Analysis firm in Mountain View, Calif.
RSS
RSS| 
Digital| 
Mobile
