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Xelerated has introduced HX336, a wirespeed single-chip NPU with advanced traffic management capabilities. According to the company, this new product enhances its HX family of network processors (NPUs).

The HX family of high performance network processors represents the third generation of Carrier Ethernet devices. Based on Xelerated (News - Alert) patented Dataflow Architecture these NPUs raise the industry bar for performance and level of integration, empowering a new wave of high service density Metro Ethernet systems.

For a single port of 100 Gbit/s, the HX336 incorporates packet processing, switching and traffic management. It features Xelerated’s dataflow architecture with 448 highly optimized Packet Instruction Set Computer processor cores and is designed for ultra-low power consumption. This eliminates expensive load/store operations, the company claims. Improving power-effectiveness, the integrated traffic manager solely utilizes cost-effective DRAM as external packet buffer memory.

“Our customers have been impressed by the industry’s first 100G wirespeed network processing demonstration, featuring the HX family,” said Anders Ericsson (News - Alert), vice president of sales and marketing for Xelerated. “We have seen strong demand for a traffic manager with 100G performance levels, and are proud to bring the HX336 to market. It combines the best of worlds, featuring a high level of performance and integration while reducing power consumption.”

Enforcing service provider’s service level agreements and managing traffic over congested resources, the integrated 100 Gbit/s traffic manager provides shaping per service, user, type of user and operator. The HX336 traffic manager subsystem features architecture which linearly scales with industry DRAM evolution; guaranteed wirespeed performance for all packet sizes; 100Gbit/s and 150 Mbps buffering, shaping and scheduling; and flexibly configurable hierarchical scheduler where all bandwidth can be assigned to a single 100GE/OTU4 port.

In January 2009, the company announced the AX family of programmable wirespeed Ethernet switches in a bid to allow network equipment vendors (NEVs) and carriers to make use of a unified Ethernet-based FTTx access solution. By combining products such as AX family with programmable packet processing, they can approach more customers with a more durable and significantly enhanced Carrier Ethernet infrastructure, the company stated.