Los Gatos, Calif. - The 7851 security and compression coprocessor from Hifn Inc. is said to offer 500-Mbit/second performance for 3DES encryption and 700-Mbit/s performance for LZS compression.

Systems that include the device can achieve data rates from full-duplex OC-3 to full-duplex OC-12 even on small packets, said Hifn president and CEO Chris Kenber.

Designed for network infrastructure developers, the coprocessor is said to reduce host processor overhead by performing intelligent packet processing in hardware. Kenber claimed that Internet Protocol security (IPSec) functions, for example, can be performed in a single pass in hardware, with no host processor intervention. The security/compression's core performs header analysis, payload extraction, compression, encryption, authentication and packet assembly.

Besides IPSec, the 7851 recognizes and operates at wire speed on packets containing protocols such as SSL, TLS, PPP and PPTP. It also works with DES and RC4 encryption algorithms, SHA-1 and MD5 authentication, and MPPC as well as LZS compression.

The 7851 uses a 64-bit, 66-MHz PCI bus or a streaming interface to handle the higher I/O data rates required for connection to a network processor and for systems that use multiple 7851s.

The 7851 can be interfaced to local memory over a 64-bit SDRAM bus, and can handle 512,000 simultaneous IPSec security associations. The device is packaged in a 480-pin ball-grid array. The price is $125 in quantities of 10,000.

Call (408) 399-3500
www.hifn.com
EETInfo No. 609