Vitesse launches integrated 16- and 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch SoCs with PHYs
July 25, 2005 Camarillo, CA -- Vitesse Semiconductor recently announced its sampling of 16- and 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switches with eight integrated PHYs and the company's embedded V-Core processor. The company says its integrated, Layer 2 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) platform reduces the number of required active components for its existing, Web-managed smart switch systems designs, while enabling next-generation security and Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities.
The company says its 16-port SparX-G16 and the 24-port SparX-G24 devices' advanced QoS functionality incorporates features such as Differentiated Service Code Point (DSCP) remarking, which permits enterprise network managers and service providers to more accurately manage the priority of traffic based on service agreements with customers. The company says this functionality also decreases the threat of internal and external security breaches through packet filtering based on Source IP, ARP, and TCP/UDP filters. In addition, according to the company, the devices offer flexible and configurable rate shaping for both ingress and egress directions, to enable enforcement of pre-negotiated bandwidth levels, and up to 8K IP Multicast group entries for applications such as video distribution.
The devices' other QoS features include four queues per port with per-queue traffic shaping and policing, IPv4 and IPv6 classification capabilities, and the ability to carry consumer-quality VoIP. Other features include 802.1x authentication, Layer 2 through Layer 4 link aggregation, and VLAN support, including Q-in-Q double VLAN tagging, and wire-speed MAC address learning.
The company says its SparX devices perform equally well across desktop switch applications ranging from small offices to small to medium enterprises, as well as in consumer wireless and DSL broadband routers. The company says the devices can simplify the designs of systems that would be otherwise burdened with external CPUs, additional external PHYs, and multi-component line termination schemes.
The company says the devices' value-added features, including packet filtering, fine granularity rate shaping, rich entries of IP multicast and processor-based address learning, exceed current Web Smart switch requirements, providing OEMs and ODMs with advanced features without requiring a costly jump to enterprise class silicon. According to the company, this is achieved through the platform's on-chip V-Core processor, which reduces the per instruction clock cycles from 12 to 4 compared with a traditional 8051 processor. The company says that this, in turn, eliminates the need for an external CPU altogether.
According to the company, to illustrate the board and cost savings achieved when using the integrated switch-plus-copper-PHY technology of its SparX devices, an engineer developing a 24-port design that would traditionally require a seven- or eight chip platform, along with additional power and ground plane provisions, would only need one SparX-G24 IC and two of the company's Octal PHYs to deliver the same design.
"Twice this year, Vitesse has delivered technologically advanced Gigabit Ethernet Switch System IC solutions to support the evolving requirements of the industry's leading OEMs and ODMs. First, with the fully integrated 5- and 8-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch ICs, and now with the world's first 16-and 24-port devices with integrated Octal PHYs," comments Claus Stetter, SparX product line director for Vitesse's Ethernet products division.
Currently sampling, the VSC7389 (16-port) and VSC7390 (24-port) Switch SoCs are available in PBGA (plastic ball grid array) packaging. Volume pricing is $48 for the 16-port device and $64 for the 24-port.