EZchip Technologies and Dune Networks partner on chipset to power service-aware switches and routers

September 23, 2004 San Jose, CA -- EZchip Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company providing high-speed network processors, and Dune Networks Inc. provider of switching fabric and traffic management solutions, today announced a complementary product offering that provides the silicon core of next-generation switches and routers.

EZchip's NP-2 network processor coupled with Dune's SAND chipset for traffic management and switching fabric provide what the companies claim is the most feature-rich and cost effective chipset for implementing line cards and switch blades. The companies will be offering silicon that has been tested and proven for seamless interoperability as well as a joint Advanced Telecommunication Compute Architecture (ATCA) reference platform. The joint ATCA solution will be available in the first quarter of 2005.

EZchip's network processors coupled with Dune's traffic manager and switch fabric provide all the key silicon capabilities required to build switch/router systems with improved processing and quality-of-service (QoS). Because the respective devices are highly integrated, the resulting system features minimal component count and cost. A typical line card will employ a single NP-2 network processor and SAND-FAP10V traffic manager/fabric interface device. The two devices are interconnected via an industry-standard SPI4.2 interface. Cost sensitive Ethernet applications utilize a lower cost model of NP-2, the NP-2/10L, which excludes NP-2's integrated traffic manager, instead using the FAP10V traffic manager to provide end-to-end rate and QoS guarantees. Multi-port SONET/SDH applications take advantage of the traffic management function integrated in both the FAP10V and NP-2 to provide system-wide, end-to-end QoS for up to 192 ports.

"The combination of the Dune and EZchip offerings provides customers with a winning solution comprised of the best in class networking silicon," contends Eli Fruchter, president and CEO of EZchip. "OEM vendors get the flexibility to use the same hardware and software design to target a variety of applications and price points. A line card with a single NP-2 from EZchip and single FAP10V from Dune provides solutions for 5-Gigabit, 10-Gigabit, and over-subscribed 10-Gigabit throughputs at varying degrees of service levels through different assembly options of pin and software compatible NP-2 models."

"Additional scalability is offered by the FAP10/20V via its mesh configurations," adds Dune Networks' CEO Eyal Dagan. "Using the NP-2 and FAP10/20V in such a configuration, thus avoiding the need for fabric devices, provides a highly integrated, fully non-blocking and lowest power solution up to 60 Gbits/sec, especially important for transport applications."

Both companies will provide customers with a seamlessly interconnected reference platform based on the ATCA standard. Leveraging this platform, equipment manufacturers can configure a network switch or router reference platform to conduct thorough development, integration, and testing before building their products. An application note detailing the joint solution options and reference platform is available.