An Embedded Networking SoC for purely Ethernet MANs/WANs

Abstract

Ethernet technology is lo longer used only in Local Area Networks (LANs); it is continuously gaining momentum in the Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN s) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). This paper presents a multi-service access concentrator core that has been designed specifically for multi-service, purely Ethernet, access nodes. In particular the presented system is optimised for Ethernet traffic aggregation over MPLS-based optical backbone networks. Moreover, we also demonstrate the bottlenecks that have been identified when such networking applications are executed in a general-purpose network processing device, and the techniques we used in order to bypass them. Our experiments results, executed in a state-of-the-art FPGA-based platform, strongly support that the combination of general purpose processing units with powerful specialized hardware modules, is the most cost-effective approach for designing systems that (i) can support today's and future network speeds and applications, in purely Ethernet networks, (ii) provide the end-user with the required programmability.