Tools support latest network search engines

Cypress Semiconductor has released an extensive range of hardware and software design tools for its Sahasra 50000 network search engine (NSE).

Cypress Semiconductor has released an extensive range of hardware and software design tools for its Sahasra 50000 network search engine (NSE).

The Cynapse design tools enable designers of networking control-plane software and packet processors to begin development of systems with Cypress's Sahasra 50000 NSE.

The Sahasra device is the industry's first algorithmic search engine to combine the ease of use of a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) with the increased routing capacity of an algorithmic search solution.

"Compared to traditional TCAM- or DRAM-based search engines, Cypress's Sahasra 50000 NSE provides significant capacity and performance improvements for lookup applications", said Jag Bolaria, Senior Analyst at The Linley Group, the leading independent analyst group in the networking silicon industry.

"Cypress is the first major NSE vendor to offer both algorithmic- and TCAM-based search engines, enabling system designers to utilise the optimal solution for forwarding or policy lookups.

With Sahasra, Cypress is poised to continue its market share gains in the search engine market".

The Cynapse software support includes the table manager, API, and device model that allow system software designers to begin development of critical control plane software in advance of silicon availability.

By providing a production-ready table manager source code and high level API, Cypress enables customers to minimise time-to-market and software development cost.

To ensure that a customer's hardware and software development schedules are aligned, the Cynapse toolset includes the Sahasra Verilog hardware model.

Because the interface of the Sahasra NSE is logically and electrically compatible with Cypress's Ayama 10000 family of NSEs, designers can migrate to the higher forwarding table capacity of Sahasra with minimal impact on their packet processor, whether it is an ASIC or FPGA.

"The Sahasra 50000 NSE combines our patented search algorithms and NSE technology, providing customers with the optimal forwarding solution by delivering performance, power, and scalability that is beyond the reach of algorithmic search systems using external DRAM or SRAM", said Vivek Pendharkar, Managing Director of Network Search Engines for Cypress's Data Communications Division.

"Now we've teamed the device with the critical software and hardware support that system designers need early in the design cycle, well before silicon".

The Sahasra 50000 NSE family uses advanced search algorithms and integrated SRAM to achieve cost per route and power of DRAM solutions, while achieving the ease of use, deterministic latency, and high performance (250 million searches per second) of TCAM-based NSEs.

Able to store 1.5 million IPv4 routes in a single chip, Sahasra addresses the search needs of systems requiring large forwarding tables, such as core routers and Layer 3 switches.

The Sahasra family is available in two densities, supporting 1.5 million or 650K IPv4 routes.

The device is scheduled to sample in Q3 2004.

The Cynapse software and hardware design tools are available now under NDA.

Back to top