Date: 12/05/2010

The new super-processor from Cavium: OCTEON II CN68XX

Cavium has upped the performance of its OCTEON processors by unveiling new processor family called OCTEON II CN68XX. Cavium says this is the industry's highest-performance multi-core processors. These processors are designed to work not like horse but like a chariot to process the data inside latest enterprise servers of cloud computing class.

Single chip 8 to 32-core OCTEON II MIPS64 processors provide up to 48 GHz of 64-bit compute with L3-L7 Data and Security Acceleration performanve to deliver 40Gbps of throughput for Internet infrastructure applications, mobile internet infrastructure and secure data centers. These OCTEON II CN68XX/67XX processors are powered by 8 to 32 of MIPS64 processor cores.

Cavium claims OCTEON II processors computing performance is greater than 3x of next-generation alternative processors and delivers 4x higher performance over its own OCTEON Plus processors.

"RadiSys customers are facing increasing processing requirements to meet their next-generation performance needs, so we are pleased to see the significant increase in compute density, throughput and service features of the new Cavium CN68XX OCTEON II processors, " said Anthony Ambrose, Vice President and General Manager, Communication Networks, RadiSys. "As the leader in ATCA solutions, we are at the forefront of delivering innovative 4G solutions with our Promentum ATCA 4.0 platform. The OCTEON CN68XX will help RadiSys continue to provide our customers with cutting-edge solutions."

"SonicWALL's recently announced technology, Project SuperMassive, uses Cavium's OCTEON Plus to deliver unmatched performance and scalability up to 384 cores and 40Gbps for full DPI and security processing in a compact, energy efficient architecture," said Matt Medeiros, CEO of SonicWALL. "The OCTEON II CN68XX will enable us to scale to 1024 cores and achieve well over 100Gbps of full malware protection so customers no longer have to compromise performance for security."

"This new family of products defines a new performance, features and cost paradigm for equipment vendors targeting the massive upgrade cycle of the network infrastructure for 3G/4G wireless, cloud computing and data center applications. With over twice the per-core control plane performance, new hardware acceleration and a dramatic increase in overall throughput, the OCTEON II CN68XX significantly enhances our competitive position and increases the breadth of applications that we address while reducing cost and power consumption," said Syed Ali, President and CEO, Cavium Networks. "These capabilities are essential to support the rapid growth in voice, video and data traffic and enable new classes of innovative applications that were simply not possible previously."

OCTEON II CN68XX and CN67XX Family Highlights
37KB I-cache, 32KB D-cache operating at up to 1.5GHz for up to 48GHz of standard-ISA based processing.
HyperConnect Cross-Bar with Independent I/O and Coprocessor Networks: The OCTEON II cores are coupled with up to 4MB partition-able, low latency L2 cache using a HyperConnect cross-bar with over 6Tbps throughput.
40+ Gbps of Packet processing and TCP performance.
40+ Gbps IPsec, SSL Security performance. OCTEON II adds WAPI support in encryption/ decryption engines to support China-specific WLAN deployments. Additionally, it includes Snow3G hardware acceleration, to address security requirements of 4G mobile networks.
Enhanced Compression/decompression acceleration - Up to 20Gbps.
Third generation HFA Deep Packet Inspection engines.
Interfaces include up to four 72-bit ECC-protected DDR3 interfaces with 400+Gbps of bandwidth
SGMII, RXAUI, XAUI and double-rate XAUI interfaces for up to 12x GbE, 4x 10GbE and 2x 20GbE Ethernet connectivity
Interlaken or Interlaken-LA controller with up to x8 lane widths, providing a channelized interface up to 40Gbps or coprocessor connectivity
Two PCIe Gen2 controllers, width up to x8 lanes
Real Time Power Optimizer to dynamically control the power consumption

Availability: The CN68XX will sample in Q4 2010 in different hardware acceleration options, speed grades and price points. The CN67XX is pin and software compatible with the CN68XX and will be offered in 8, 12, and 16-core options, and will also sample in Q4 2010