Vitesse offers Tiger Layer 3 routing, VPN, and MPLS switch engine

JANUARY 26, 2011 -- Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Pink Sheets: VTSS.PK) has expanded its Carrier Ethernet semiconductor portfolio to include scalable Layer 3 routing and MPLS switching support in its new Tiger (VSC7480) switch engine. Complementing Vitesse’s previously announced Jaguar, LynX, and Caracal switch engines for carrier access and mobile edge applications, Tiger is designed for scalable service and backhaul aggregation, cloud computing, video, smart-grid, IPTV, IP routing, optical line termination, and gateway applications.

Vitesse says Tiger combines advanced processing and switching features with packet processing flexibility, IP routing and VPN, service and forwarding table scalability, and carrier-class availability and reliability. It includes a 100G bi-directional packet processing engine that supports IPv4/v6 L3 routing, MPLS switching, advanced multicasting and tunneling protocols. This functionality enables delivery of Layer-2 and Layer 3 VPN services over a carrier network.

Tiger also offers hierarchical quality of service (HQoS), as well as scalable, flexible forwarding and routing profile management for different applications. This provides a lower power and more cost-effective alternative to NPUs for scalable network equipment design, Vitesse asserts.

“Service provider and Enterprise applications demand scalable Layer-2 and Layer-3 service creation and service management capabilities in the aggregation network with strong hierarchical QoS features in order to offer multi-service IPTV, voice Over IP, and multi-tiered VPN services,” said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at the Linley Group. “Vitesse continues to specifically address important service provider needs with its Ethernet Switching product line. We are excited to see highly integrated, high-volume IC solutions such as Tiger that address these needs.”

Tiger offers as many as forty-eight 1-Gbps ports and eight 10G ports, which can be configured as 48 x 1G + 4 x 10G or 8 x 10G or other combinations. With its optional external SRAM and TCAM, the switch engine supports up to a million MPLS labels and IP routes.

Samples of Tiger (VSC7480) are generally available now, with volume production scheduled for the second quarter of calendar 2011. A complete reference design is available.

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