Cisco has packed 4 billion transistors onto a single chip in an effort to create the world’s most scalable and programable network processor. The company says it is targeting the Internet of Everything (IoE) with its nPower X1, which it calls “the first generation of the nPower processor family.” The networking giant says the nPower XI breaks new ground by scaling to multi-terabit performance levels while handling trillions of transactions.
The nPower X1 is designed for programmable networks. With open APIs, Cisco’s new chipset is “purpose-built for software-defined networking (SDN),” according to the company. The nPower XI incorporates more than 50 patents, consumes just one quarter as much power per bit as Cisco’s previous network processor, and reportedly achieves throughput levels of 400Gbps, which Cisco says gives the chip eight times the bandwidth of its predecessor.
Other companies that make network processors include Marvell, LSI, and EZchip. Marvell is targeting the Internet of Everything with its Armada portfolio, an ARM-based family of processors that includes products aimed at networking applications, video surveillance and “smart home” solutions. EZchip counts Cisco as a customer for its network processors, and the company’s shares tumbled 20% last week on news of Cisco’s new product.
The billions of connections that are expected to comprise the Internet of Things have encouraged most chipmakers to look at small, low power solutions. Recently the industry has seen a number of announcements in this area on the device side. Just last week, Intel announced that it has developed a tiny new chip called Quark that uses a small fraction of the power consumed by its Atom processors for mobile devices. Quark targets IoE and wearable applications. One week earlier, Qualcomm unveiled two new Wi-Fi chipsets to connect everyday home appliances to mobile devices. And last May, Broadcom announced Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets that target small home appliances.
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