Date: 28/09/2010

New PacketPro multicore processors from AppliedMicro for embedded applications

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AppliedMicro) has released its next-generation PacketPro multicore processor System-on-a-Chip (SoC) family, with advanced subsystem and offload acceleration hardware. This Processor family targets new levels of security, high availability, low latency, and power management for embedded applications.

PacketPro is AppliedMicro's second-generation embedded processor SoC family. These devices feature offload of critical features for multiple PowerPC processors with frequency capabilities ranging from 600 MHz to 2.0 GHz and beyond. The SoC subsystem design features Scalable Lightweight Intelligent Management processor or SLIMpro for flexibility in SoC power management, protected asymmetric multiprocessing (PMP), failover protection, resiliency and end-to-end security for a wide range of mission-critical applications in wireless and wired networking, multi-function printer, industrial, access point markets.

Each device introduced into the PacketPro family enables multiple, concurrent operating systems (OS) while providing resource protection (processors, memory and I/O) that each domain operates in a transparent, independent and protected mode. It also enables application-aware and usage-based power management to reduce energy consumption. The multi-level crypto engine offers simultaneous wire-speed performance along with investment protection against product cloning and hardware-software tampering.

The PacketPro multicore SoC architecture is designed to manage abundant on-chip resources as the industry shifts from single core to multicore applications. PacketPro also features configurable offload engines for in-line packet processing, security, traffic classification, shaping and queue management.

"PacketPro is an advanced SoC architecture that offers an ideal combination of high-performance and low power consumption at low cost," said Vinay Ravuri, Vice President and General Manager of AppliedMicro's Processing Products Division. "Flexible power management enables deep sleep operating power of less than 200mW and includes Wake on LAN, USB, PCIe and others. With the ability to scale-down and turn off SoC resources when not in use and to scale-up to full power when system demands require, PacketPro provides developers unprecedented ability to dynamically control power consumption levels."

"Simply adding more cores to a chip doesn't necessarily solve the customer's problem," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "AppliedMicro's PacketPro is a well thought-out SoC architecture that addresses critical system-design issues such as end-to-end security, high availability, and flexible power management. The non-blocking multi-hub queuing fabric delivers a deterministic low-latency solution for packet processing."

The AppliedMicro PacketPro family enables performance of up to 2 GHz per core, 32KB L1 I/D & 256KB dedicated L2 cache per core, support for full symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP). The memory and bus architecture supports 16/32/64-bit DDR2/3 up to 1,600Mbps and beyond with ECC option. It enables connectivity with PCI-e Gen 2 controller, GE, 10GE, SGMII, RGMII, IEEE1588 Rev2 on all Ethernet ports, USB 2.0 - H/D, OTG, all with integrated PHY, USB 3.0, SATA ports and SDHC.

Package: 40nm TSMC CMOS in both wire-bond and flip-chip packaging.

Availability: First PacketPro device is scheduled to begin sampling in November.