PMC-Sierra intros Gigabit fiber access gateway devices

JUNE 4, 2007 -- PMC-Sierra Inc. (search for PMC-Sierra) today announced the availability of two fiber access gateway products, the MSP7150 EPON/GPON gateway system-on-chip (SoC) for fiber-to-the-home (search for FTTH) and the MSP7140 VDSL2 gateway SoC for fiber-to- the-node (search for FTTN).

According to the company, these SoCs deliver gigabit-per-second line-rate IPv4/v6 routing, Network Address Translation (NAT), Quality of Service (QoS), encryption, and a multi-channel VoIP terminal adaptor. And they consume less than 1.5 W of power, says the company. PMC-Sierra's fiber access gateway products are designed to provide OEMs and ODMs with a common platform architecture to support multiple high-speed access technologies in various geographic markets. In addition, say PMC-Sierra representatives, service providers can rely on equipment based on PMC-Sierra's multi-service platform to deliver carrier-grade IP services into the digital home.

"PMC-Sierra is the only company that has shipped millions of devices into production FTTH deployments, and we have leveraged this unique expertise to ensure that our fiber access gateway solutions exceed the performance requirements for FTTH and FTTN topologies," contends Victor Vaisleib, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra's Fiber Access Business Unit. "Our high-performance gigabit-per-second fiber access gateway solution enables the management and delivery of carrier-grade voice, video and data services from the central office to the home."

"PMC-Sierra's gateway SoCs use an innovative multi-threaded architecture to provide the Gigabit connectivity, flexibility, and the features needed to enable next-generation broadband gateways that accommodate evolving service models," adds Joseph Byrne, senior analyst at The Linley Group.

The MSP7140/50 integrate three gigabit ports, two USB 2.0 full-speed PHYs, a 66-MHz PCI bus, DDR2 memory controller, multi-channel VoIP terminal adapter, IPSec accelerator, and hardware protection against small packet flooding to protect critical services from packet loss during periods of high network activity, says the company.

PMC-Sierra's MSP7150 supports both IEEE 802.3ah-compliant EPON and ITU-T G.984-compliant GPON fiber access gateway products. With an integrated VDSL2 modem, the MSP7140 is the ideal solution for multi-service VDSL2-based gateway, adds the company. The MSP7140 device is the first to demonstrate VDSL2 interoperability with all installed central office VDSL1 and VDSL2 chipsets and is backwards compatible to ADSL2+.

PMC-Sierra offers the following designs and development platforms, including BOM-cost optimized schematics, gerbers, and documentation: PM2330-KIT for EPON, PM2331-KIT for GPON, PM2329-KIT for VDSL2, and PM2332-KIT for Gigabit Ethernet fiber access gateways.

An MSP7100 SDK, with Linux OS, powerful networking stack, Linux APIs, VoIP Processing Module (VPM), and a standard MIPS software development tool chain package, is available to support rapid development and leverage the power of the Linux ecosystem, report PMC-Sierra representatives. The MSP7100 SDK also supports PMC-Sierra's MSP7120/30 ADSL2+ and Fast-Ethernet multi-service processors, announced in May 2006.

The MSP7140/50 fiber access gateway devices and reference design platforms will be sampling in early Q3 2007.

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